Naomi Stead facts for kids
Naomi Stead is an Australian expert who studies, teaches, and writes about architecture. She is known for her work as a professor and critic. Currently, she is a director at RMIT University in Melbourne, where she helps researchers from different fields work together on important projects.
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Early Life and Schooling
Naomi Stead was born in February 1975 and grew up in Adelaide, South Australia. She was interested in buildings from a young age and decided to study architecture. In 1998, she graduated with top honors from the University of South Australia.
After finishing her first degree, she continued her studies at the University of Queensland. In 2004, she earned her PhD, which is the highest degree you can get at a university. For her PhD project, she studied the architecture of modern museums. She focused on two famous buildings: the Jewish Museum in Berlin, designed by Daniel Libeskind, and the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.
Career as a Professor and Researcher
Dr. Stead began her teaching career at the University of Technology, Sydney in 2001. She later worked as a researcher at the University of Queensland and became a professor there. In 2017, she moved to Monash University and was the Head of the Architecture Department from 2018 to 2020.
In 2022, she took on a new leadership role at RMIT University. Her job is to support research that connects design with other subjects to help solve real-world problems for people and the planet.
Over the years, Dr. Stead has also been a visiting expert at universities in other countries, including Sweden, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
Her research covers many topics, including:
- The history of writing about architecture.
- How architects and buildings are shown in movies and on TV.
- Making the field of architecture fairer for women.
- The wellbeing of architects and architecture students.
- How people experience cities, for example, by walking.
Making Architecture Fair for Everyone
From 2011 to 2014, Dr. Stead led a major research project funded by the Australian Research Council. The project looked at why there were fewer women in high-level jobs in architecture in Australia.
The research team wanted to find out what challenges women faced and suggest ways to make the profession more equal. This important work led to the creation of an advocacy group called Parlour: women, equity, architecture. Parlour provides guides and resources to help create fairer workplaces. It also helped the Australian Institute of Architects develop its own policy on gender equity.
Wellbeing of Architects Project
Dr. Stead also leads a research project about the health and happiness of people who study and work in architecture. This project, which started in 2020, is called "Architectural Work Cultures."
It is the first big study in Australia to look at how workplace stress and professional identity affect the mental wellbeing of architects. The goal is to use the findings to create resources that will help improve the lives of architects and students in the future.
Helping the Architecture Community
Dr. Stead is very active in the architecture community. She has been a member of the Australian Institute of Architects's National Committee for Gender Equity. She has also edited several academic journals, which are magazines where experts share their research.
She has organized many conferences and events where architects and students can come together to share ideas. She often gives public talks and has been interviewed on the radio about architecture and cities.
Exhibitions
Dr. Stead has also curated (organized) several exhibitions about architecture. These shows explore different ideas, from what it's like to work as an architect to the design of everyday spaces. Some of her exhibitions include:
- Portraits of Practice: At Work in Architecture (2015)
- Hung Out to Dry: Space, memory, and domestic laundry practices (2015)
- Mapping Sydney: Experimental Cartography and the Imagined City (2009)
Selected Books and Publications
Dr. Stead is a published author who has written and edited many books and articles. Here are a few of her works:
- 2021 After The Australian Ugliness
- 2020 Writing Architectures: Ficto-Critical Approaches
- 2019 Speaking of Buildings: Oral History in Architectural Research
- 2012 Semi-Detached: Writing, Representation and Criticism in Architecture
Awards and Recognition
Dr. Stead's work has earned her and her teams several awards.
- 2015: The group Parlour: women, equity, architecture won the Bates Smart Award for Architecture in the Media and the Adrian Ashton Prize.
- 2015: Her team was a finalist for creating the Australian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, a famous international exhibition.
- 2008: She won the Adrian Ashton Prize for Architectural Writing.
See also
- Parlour: women, equity, architecture
