Doctor Katrina Sandbach

Dr Katrina Sandbach is a Senior Lecturer in Design (Visual Communication) in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University.

Katrina’s research draws from her experience as a designer and design educator, using visual and digital methods to study place, identity, and community, emphasizing practice-led approaches and non-traditional outcomes. She is interested in the social, cultural, and economic impacts of creative industries, and is driven by her concerns about the support given to current and future creative practitioners through education, policy, and community-based initiatives.  

Katrina is the co-designer of Mapimo, an interactive digital tool that invites participants to share their emotional connections with place. She also leads the Creative West project that maps 1000+ sites of creative practice and cultural production in Western Sydney. Her research on creative industries has driven curriculum reforms at Western Sydney University and contributed to major industry research projects.

Katrina’s current research explores the following themes:

Arts-led strategies: Using artistic and creative approaches to achieve goals in different sectors, particularly within education, community/place development, health, and social justice.

Creative geographies: How creative activities and industries shape and are shaped by the physical and cultural landscapes of a particular place or region.

Visibility, identity, and belonging: How individuals and communities experience and express their identities visually, and how this can impact their sense of belonging and inclusion.

Visual communication and culture: How images, symbols, and other visual media are used to communicate meaning and values within a particular cultural context and convey messages about cultural identity, social norms, and values.

As an award-winning educator, Katrina’s curriculum design and teaching approach centres on community engagement and strengths-based learning approaches that balance student well-being and outcomes with work readiness, ensuring that students graduate as skillful, resilient, and sought-after designers. She is the convenor of Burrow, a work-integrated learning studio that connects emerging designers with organisations that require creative insight. Since 2016 she has supervised more than 800 students. She has developed, managed, and delivered 100+ real-world design projects of varying scope and complexity, working with a range of partners spanning the education, arts and culture, tech innovation, health, and local government sectors. 

This information has been contributed by Doctor Sandbach.