Phillippa Carnemolla

Professor Phillippa Carnemolla is a leading academic at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), where she serves as Professor in the School of Built Environment within the Faculty of Design Architecture and Building. She holds significant leadership roles as Theme Lead of the UTS Ageing Research Collaborative (Design and Innovation) and Academic Lead of the UTS Disability Research Network. Her research investigates how the built environment influences people's independence, autonomy, and care provision across housing, workplaces, residential aged care, and inclusive cities.

Her research interests center on inclusive design approaches, with particular focus on housing design, ageing in place, disability research, and community-led innovation. Carnemolla's work examines the breadth of health, care, and social impacts resulting from inclusive design approaches in contexts including smart cities, ageing populations, and housing models. She has developed expertise in Specialist Disability Accommodation and universal design principles, with strong emphasis on community-centered approaches that prioritize inclusion of people with disability as project leaders and researchers.

Carnemolla's research outputs demonstrate significant impact across multiple domains. Her work has been cited internationally by the US Senate (2022), World Health Organisation (2022), UK Government Department for Levelling Up (2023), and informed Australia's National Aged Care Design Principles and Guidelines (2023). Her publications span diverse areas including accessible public infrastructure, climate justice for people with disability, disability institutional heritage, and housing security for ageing populations.

• Uniting Research Fellow (2021)
• Finalist in the AFR Tertiary Education Awards (2022)
• 2020 DAB Award for Excellence: Research Excellence
• International Women's Day Scholarship (2021)
• UTS - Leaders in their Field (2019)

Professor Carnemolla leads numerous funded research projects including 'Delivering sustainable and quality aged care in home environments' (2025-2028), 'Voices of Change: Bridging Past and Present in Disability Self-Advocacy' (2023-2024), and 'Mapping Participation: An analysis of SDA data' (2021-2022). She has secured funding from diverse sources including ARC, UTS, NSW Department of Education, and the National Disability Insurance Agency. Her community engagement approach was instrumental in UTS receiving the Carnegie Community Engagement Classification in 2023.

Her research team fosters collaborations among housing and disability support providers including Uniting, Achieve Australia, and Northcott. The 'My Home My Community project' exemplifies her commitment to embedding diversity and inclusion, integrating disciplinary knowledge with lived experience to advance the field of inclusive design.