I grew up in a family with deep farming roots in Aceh, Indonesia - a beautiful, resource-rich province shaped by resilience in the face of devastating conflict and natural disasters. From math to art to sport, I was endlessly curious about the world. But one question never left me: how can I give back to communities like the one I came from? 
That question led me here - to Sydney, and the University of Technology Sydney. I chose the TD School because it encourages us to challenge traditional thinking and imagine new futures. At UTS, I’m not just doing a PhD - I’m part of a community that believes research should make a real difference.

My work is about supporting AgTech stakeholders and small farming communities, the people producing nearly a third of the world’s food. AgTech is designing technology that fits real-life needs – creating solutions with farmers, not just for them. It's about creating change that lasts with access to relevant innovations, entrepreneurial pathways, and more sustainable livelihoods. But more than that - being a mum to a young daughter while doing this research gives it even more meaning. I want her to grow up knowing that women can lead, build, and reimagine a better future. 

At UTS, you’re never working alone. Thanks to a grant from DFAT Australia-Indonesia Institute, I’ve worked with local partners across four provinces in Indonesia - designing innovative farming practices that have the power to protect our environment for future generations. This work is already creating change – like supporting a social enterprise and women farmers to move from wood-fired cooking to cleaner, safer biogas, and turning everyday farm waste into natural fertiliser that can be sold.  

The support from my supervisors, global partnerships, and networking opportunities - they’ve all shaped my research journey. Whether you're in health, design, science, or engineering, there’s space for your voice and your vision here.

Complex challenges need creative solutions - and that means collaborating with leaders across disciplines, industries and cultures. To me, UTS is not just a university. It’s a partner for a sustainable future. 
 
 

Wajiha Pervez, a PhD candidate at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), is combining traditional textile techniques with advanced technologies to explore more sustainable approaches to fashion.

In this video, we showcase her process, beginning with AI generated designs, followed by 3D simulations, precise yarn threading and sampling on the Shima Seiki WHOLEGARMENT knit machine. The result is a seamless garment made from natural fibres, free from dyes and synthetics. Each piece is carefully refined for fit, comfort and durability, supporting a made-to-order approach that reduces waste.

Wajiha’s research is part of a broader shift towards slow, thoughtful design that considers both environmental impact and material integrity.

When disaster strikes, time is everything. So we need to know the best way to find survivors and victims, identify them, and figure out what happened — and we need to do it really quickly.

Preparing for these situations is especially challenging, as the environment can change everything about the decomposition process. Having the AFTER facility here in Australia means we're going to add a lot of value to Australian law enforcement agencies. We know how quickly or how slowly the body is going to break down and what that means for our identifiers. For example, how easy is it going to be to use DNA? How long can we still get dental information? How long can we get fingerprinting? These are the things we need to consider when being deployed in a disaster.

What we're doing is simulating a disaster scenario. In this case, it’s a domestic terrorism attack. We invite people to come out and use this as a training activity. They have to come on site and bring only the gear they would in any disaster victim identification (DVI) deployment — the same equipment they’d use anywhere in the world. Their job is to recover any victims, check for any living victims, and then recover and identify the deceased. Any type of evidence also needs to be collected.

This is my seventh disaster scenario. In the first year, it was just UTS and one law enforcement organisation. Since then, it's really grown. Now we have participants from all across Australia and New Zealand. This year, we also have some international visitors joining us because of the uniqueness of what we're doing in this exercise.

One of the things I'm really passionate about is developing new technology to find missing persons. We've been working on an electronic nose that works similarly to a scent detection dog, but in robot form. This helps us overcome some of the limitations of using dogs. We're now up to our fourth prototype and bringing it out to the disaster site to see how it performs in the field. Ultimately, we want to help with real cases and show how this research has real-world implications.

In the future, we want to continue growing these kinds of activities because they’re so crucial. The training users get here is unmatched anywhere else in the world. If we can improve the way they respond to disaster events, it means we can recover individuals more quickly, potentially save lives, and respectfully recover the deceased. That helps bring information and answers to the family members who are anxiously waiting.