Dr Oksana Zelenko presently holds the role of Director, Research Engagement and Impact, with QUT’s Creative Industries Faculty. Until recently she was Discipline Leader heading up several design departments, including Industrial Design, Interaction Design, Visual Communication and Fashion at QUT School of Design. Dr Zelenko is a design academic and researcher specializing in applications of participatory design for eHealth. Her area of expertise is in interaction and visual design for e-health applications with a specific focus on using participatory and co-design methods for design, development and evaluation of interactive health promoting technologies promoting youth mental health and wellbeing.
She is co-editor of Design and Ethics: Reflections on Practice (with Emma Felton and Suzi Vaughan) published by Routledge. Dr Zelenko has had a leading role in design research across a series of national and international projects, resulting in a wide range of novel technologies, ranging from mobile health apps to education and capacity-building platforms, contributing as part of large transdisciplinary teams. Oksana has produced a report on the potential of digital media to support youth mental health for Queensland Health and QUT Resilient Children and Communities Project (2002-2006). In 2010, Oksana was the invited speaker on the potential of digital media to support community resilience in pre- and post-disaster management at the national launch of Volunteering Queensland’s Disaster Readiness Index.
Oksana’s broader practice includes the design and evaluation of interactive educational programmes for cross-cultural training of medical staff in remote regions across the Pacific, development of interactive counselling modules for Queensland Government and ongoing design consultancy in the not-for-profit sector. Oksana has presented the outcomes of her research nationally and internationally.