BUD research team
Faculty of Health
Maralyn Foureur
Chief Investigator, Visiting Professor of Midwifery
Professor Maralyn Foureur leads the project and will have overall project responsibility and coordination, supervision of research staff and support of a research assistant. Her interest in birth unit design has arisen from her many years observing women in her role as midwife. “I’ve observed what goes on in spaces. I used to think that women would have a better experience if they got to know their midwives so they had companions … that would allow them to do all sorts of things (during labour). But then I watched, even when women had their own midwives and they had somebody they knew, but even then if they weren't able to … move around in the space and do everything that they wanted to do, (it was) because the facilities just don't support it.”
Caroline Homer
Former Director of the Centre for Midwifery, Child and Family Health
Caroline has an extensive background in maternity service provision and has led research into effective models of maternity care as well as safety and quality, culture, severe maternal morbidity and workforce stress and turnover. She has strong links with policy makers and clinicians and is well known across the country in a multidisciplinary context.
Nicky Leap
Adjunct Professor of Midwifery (former staff member)
Nicky brings methodological expertise to the project as she has used video ethnography in research with colleagues at Kings College, London. She will also be responsible for supporting the researchers collecting video at the sites.
Deborah Davis
Adjunct Professor and University of Canberra and Clinical Chair in Midwifery ACT Government Health Directorate
Associate Professor Deborah Davis has expertise in researching notions of space and maternity care. Her PhD thesis on caseload midwifery with a focus on the obstetric hospital setting shaping midwifery practice and birth will be drawn on in this research project as will her recent project in New Zealand using the internet site "Second Life" to study the impact of design upon learning.
Faculty of Design, Architecture and Building
Ian Forbes
Adjunct Professor, School of Design
Ian brings a background as a practising architect and principal health planner to this project. His expert understanding of the relationships between architecture and its impact on human behaviour, particularly in the area of stress and its physiological consequences is an essential component of this project. He will be responsible for leading the design analysis of this project.
Berto Pandolfo
Director Industrial Design, School of Design
Berto has more than 20 years’ experience in industrial design after gaining his Bachelor of Arts in Industrial Design in 1988 from the University of Canberra and his Master of Arts in Industrial Design in 1992 from the Domus Academy, in Milan, Italy. Since attaining these qualifications, Berto has worked in the design industry and higher education. His experience in industrial design will assist in exploring new and emerging technologies that can be introduced to the environment and benefit the end user in a nonexclusive manner. Berto will play a key role in video analysis in terms of environmental design.
Interdisciplinary members
Roslyn Sorensen
Professor and Head of the School of Public Health, Griffith University
Roslyn has research expertise in health service organisation and safety and quality.
Jennifer Fenwick
Professor of Midwifery, Griffith University and Clinical Chair Gold Coast Hospital
Jennifer is an experienced clinician and academic with a national research profile in the area of women's childbirth expectations and experiences. Her work has involved the implementation and development of women centred models of maternity care in both the public and private sector in Australia. She has expertise in qualitative research design and analysis and her early work, on a large NHMRC project grant exploring the communication patterns and relationships between parents and nurses within neonatal nursery spaces is well cited.
George Verghese
Dean of the Faculty of Design, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Canada
George has extensive international experience in education and practice in interior design and interior architecture, including work in North America with the internationally renowned firm of Yabu Pushelburg and NORR Partnership. He was associate professor and Chair of the School of Interior Design/Interior Architecture Educators Association, and also holds memberships in numerous professional interior design associations. George will contribute his expertise to the analysis phase of the project through his understanding of nonverbal communication in interior design.
Associated researchers
Annabelle Sheehy
Research assistant
Maree Stenglin
Associate Research Fellow
Maree is an Associate Research Fellow in Midwifery, Child and Family Health at the University of Technology Sydney and an Honorary Researcher at the University of Sydney. Her research interests include social semiotics, with a strong focus on 3D spaces, both built and natural. Her doctoral thesis, Packaging Curiosities: Towards a Grammar of three-dimensional space, developed a social semiotic theory of space. This theory proposes tools for both the analysis and design of spatial meaning. In the past 10 years, she has applied this theory to the analysis of indoor and outdoor museum exhibitions as well as homes, restaurants, a winery and virtual spaces. She is currently collaborating with Professor Maralyn Foureur to extend this theory of 3D space to the analysis of hospital birth spaces for women.
Students
BUD students
J. Davis Harte, Project Coordinator and PhD Candidate
Faculty of Health, UTS
Supervisor: Maralyn Foureur
Thesis: The childbirth supporter study: Video-ethnographic examination of the physical birth unit environment.
Completed: 2016
Calida Bowden, Bachelor of Midwifery Honours
Faculty of Health, UTS
Supervisor: Maralyn Foureur
Thesis: Birth room images: What they tell us about childbirth.
Completed: 2015
Athena Hammond, PhD candidate
Faculty of Health, UTS
Supervisors: Maralyn Foureur and Caroline Homer
Thesis: Oxytocin and adrenaline spaces: midwives’ perceptions and beliefs about the design of hospital birth rooms.
Completed: 2017
Associated BUD students
Tamzin Mondy, Master’s candidate
Griffith University
Supervisor: Professor Jennifer Fenwick
Sara Menke, Bachelor of Midwifery honours candidate
Australian Catholic University, Brisbane
Supervisor: Supervisors Dr Helen Stapleton and Professor Sue Kildea