Dr Hardy is a senior lecturer in the Indigenous Education and Research Centre.  She is also a Research Fellow at The Cairns Institute and a member of the Tropical Archaeology Research Lab at JCU.

Dianna's research focuses on the use co-design of technology to support people in communities to solve problems. Through these projects she has demonstrated expertise in co-design, participatory design methods and user experience design with industry and applied research partners. She uses cultural interface theory to inform her research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and to leverage her IT and co-design skills to assist community members in developing projects that improve social and emotional wellbeing.

Dianna is also an expert in leveraging Machine Learning for the social sciences. She is on the steering committee and co-facilitator of the North Queensland AI Indigenous Datathon held each year with Indigenous community members, AI specialists, and researchers working together to use AI and drone imagery for Caring for Country initiatives. Dianna is also a  frequently requested speaker on design thinking, co-design and action research methods.  

Her current research areas include:

• Using co-design methods to develop social and technical solutions for diverse communities
• Data sharing and use of sovereign data for Indigenous people
• Using ML/DL to automate analysis of social science and humanities data

Dr Hardy is highly engaged in the tech startup community and works closely with DevNQ and with Smart Precinct NQ.

Dianna is currently looking for research students (MPhil and PhD) who are interested in the following topics:

• Co-design of technology with community groups
• Use of ML/DL for socio-technical solutions
• Technology development for historical and cultural sustainability

Teaching

• IA2022: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People as Colonial Subjects (Level 2; CNS & TSV)
• IA3024: Indigenous Narratives in the Contemporary Era (Level 3; CNS & TSV)
• IA5022: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People as Colonial Subjects (Level 5; TSV)
• MA3831: Natural Language Processing, Web Scraping and Large Data Processing (Level 3; CNS & TSV)

Research Disciplines

• Curriculum and pedagogy (3901)
• Information systems (4609)

Socio-Economic Objectives

• Information systems, technologies and services (2204)
• Expanding knowledge (2801)
• Learner and learning (1601)

Awards

• 2020 - Australian Award for University Teaching - Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning
• 2019 - College of Science & Engineering - Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning
• 2014 - School of Business, Law, Governance and Information Technology - Sessional Staff Teaching Award for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

• Goldfinch F, Chang N and Hardy D (in press) Ex Machina: Machine Learning, ceramics & rock art in the Khorat Plateau, Thailand. SPAFA Journal,
• McDowall A, Hardy D, Backhaus V, Mills K and Watkin Lui F (2023) Growing learning dispositions in Indigenous studies. Australian Journal of Indigenous Education, 52 (2).
• Zhu R, Hardy D and Myers T (2022) Community led co-design of a social networking platform with adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 52. pp. 38-51

Book Chapters

• Hardy D, Forest E, McIntosh Z, Myers T and Gertz J (2016) Moving beyond "just tell me what to code": inducting tertiary ICT students into research methods with aboriginal participants via games design. In: OzCHI '16 Proceedings of the 28th Australian Conference on Computer-Human Interaction. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, pp. 557-561

Conference Papers

• Addanki k, Holdsworth J, Hardy D and Myers T (2022) A preliminary study using academagogy to uncover the problems that block adult online learner engagement. Proceedings of the ACE '22: Australasian Computing Education Conference. 14-18 February 2022, Virtual
• Addanki k, Holdsworth J, Hardy D and Myers T (2020) Academagogy for enhancing adult online learner engagement in higher education. Proceedings of the 2020 AIS SIGED International Conference on Information Systems Education and Research. 12-13 December 2020, Online Event
• Simon , Myers T, Hardy D and Mason R (2019) Variations on a theme: academic integrity and program code. Proceedings of the 21th Australasian Computing Education Conference. In: ACE2019: 21th Australasian Computing Education Conference, 29-31 January 2019, Sydney, NSW, Australia
• Zhu Z, Hardy D and Myers T (2019) Co-designing with adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder: from ideation to implementation. Proceedings of the 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer-Interaction. In: OZCHI'19: 31st Australian Conference on Human-Computer-Interaction, 3-5 December 2019, Perth, WA, Australia
• Hardy D, Myers T and Sankupellay M (2018) Cohorts and cultures: developing future design thinkers. Proceedings of the 20th Australasian Computing Education Conference. In: ACE2018: 20th Australasian Computing Education Conference, 30 January - 2 February 2018, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
• Kingsun M, Myers T and Hardy D (2018) C-DOM: a structured co-design framework methodology for ontology design and development. Proceedings of the Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference. In: ACSW'18: Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference, 29 January - 2 February 2018, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
• Zhu R, Hardy D and Myers T (2018) Building applications that matter: co-designing with adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. In: HIS 2018: 7th International Conference of Health Information Science, 5-7 October 2018, Cairns, QLD, Australia
• Hardy D, Forest E, McIntosh Z, Gertz J and Myers T (2016) Co-creation of a digital game to support language revitalisation. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Cooperative Design, Visualization and Engineering. In: CDVE 2016: 13th International Conference on Cooperative Design, Visualization and Engineering, 24-27 October 2016, Sydney, NSW, Australia

More

ResearchOnline@JCU stores 26+ research outputs authored by Dr Dianna Hardy from 2006 onwards.

Current and recent Research Funding to JCU is shown by funding source and project.

Advisory Accreditation: I can be on your Advisory Panel as a Primary or Secondary Advisor.

These Higher Degree Research projects are either current or by students who have completed their studies within the past 5 years at JCU. Linked titles show theses available within ResearchOnline@JCU.

Current

• No bodies are still somebodies: A detailed exploratory study into characteristics of long-term missing persons within Australia applying NLP methods. (PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Calf Clan Culture: Rock art of the Khorat Plateau (PhD , Secondary Advisor)

Completed

• "Staying afloat at school": academic buoyancy amongst Indigenous secondary students (2023, Masters , Secondary Advisor)
• No bodies are still somebodies: Evaluating the use of public online information to develop a dataset of characteristics on long-term missing persons within Australia (2023, Masters , Primary Advisor)
• Developmentally appropriate guidelines for technology augmented pre-schooler toys (2023, Masters , Primary Advisor)
• Co-designing with adolescents with autism spectrum disorder: a participatory action research approach (2020, PhD , Primary Advisor)
• Enhancing Learning Management Systems to Support Online Learning Using Academagogy (2024, PhD , Secondary Advisor)
• Exploring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students? Acquisition and Use of Academic Information Behaviours and Academic Information Literacies (2024, Masters , Primary Advisor)

The map shows research collaborations by institution from the past 7 years.
Note: Map points are indicative of the countries or states that institutions are associated with.