Rate My Professor Christopher Lawrence

Professor Christopher Lawrence, a proud Wadjak/Ballardong man from the Noongar Nation of the South West of Western Australia, is an Aboriginal health and wellbeing researcher at Monash University. He holds a Master’s in Applied Epidemiology from the Australian National University (2005) and a Doctor of Philosophy in Public Health from the University of Sydney (2015), with his doctoral research focused on Indigenous health and lifestyle choices. His distinguished career includes roles as Head of the Centre for Indigenous Technology Research and Development in the School of Software at the University of Technology Sydney, where he established innovative programs such as the SMART Indigenous Community initiative for co-designing a smart health hub with an Aboriginal Medical Service. He also served as Dean and Professor of Indigenous Engagement at Curtin University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering. Appointed in early 2023 as the inaugural Associate Dean (Indigenous) in Monash University’s Faculty of Information Technology, he leads the faculty’s strategic plan for advancing First Nations peoples in alignment with the university’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Framework. Additionally, he is Professor of Practice in Space Innovation and Security Capabilities in the Faculty of Engineering and leads the National Indigenous Space Academy (NISA), partnering with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the UK’s Rutherford Appleton Laboratory to train Indigenous STEM students.

Professor Lawrence’s research interests include Aboriginal health and wellbeing, Indigenous resilience across Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, technology to close health gaps, Indigenous data sovereignty, cybersecurity for Indigenous communities, digital solutions for Aboriginal child and youth mental health, and Indigenous human-computer interaction. As Chief Investigator, he has secured major grants such as an NHMRC Tripartite study on Indigenous resilience and a 2016 ARC grant to leverage technology for Aboriginal health improvement and cultural reconnection, attracting nearly $10 million in funding overall. He was the 2008-2009 recipient of the Australian-American Fulbright Indigenous Scholarship, conducting research at Harvard University School of Public Health on diabetes interventions and at Howard University on emotional wellbeing for African-American youth. Key publications comprise “Cybersecurity: Putting Indigenous Peoples First” (2024, Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology), “On being iIterated: The affective demands of design participation” (2020, CHI Conference), “Designing for diversity in Aboriginal Australia: Insights from a national technology project” (2019, OzCHI), and “#thismymob: Preserving and promoting indigenous Australian cultural heritage” (2018, Mobile HCI). With 22 peer-reviewed publications and extensive keynote experience, he has pioneered the first Indigenous Graduate Attribute in higher education STEM, integrating Indigenous knowledge systems into curricula and infrastructure to foster ethical, inclusive leadership.