Yoko Akama

Yoko Akama is a design researcher and educator. Yoko's upbringing, education and employment in Australia, UK, US and Japan have grounded a practice that is committed to enhance qualities of inter-relating, embrace differences and cultural sensitivity to deeply engage with complexities. Yoko's Japanese heritage and collaboration in and around the Asia-Pacific shapes their research, teaching and participatory work to address various entrenched issues and explore shared human and more-than-human futures.

Yoko is a recipient of several national and international awards and research funding for collaborative work with self-determining Indigenous nations and communities preparing for disaster. These have been published in several books: Uncertainty and Possibility (2018); Modes of Uncertainty in HCI (2022) and Entanglements of Designing Social Innovation in the Asia-Pacific (2023). 

See more on ResearchGate, Academia, or ORCiD.

Awards and Grants

2024: Lead CI, Codesigning First Nations Disaster Resilience Strategy, Logan City Council Contract Research

2022: CI, Women’s leadership in designing social innovation: mutual learning in the Asia-Pacific, Arts and Humanities Research Council Grant, UK 

2021: Lead CI, Women’s leadership through craft: Mutual learning between Australia and Japan, Australia-Japan Foundation (DFAT) Grant 

2020 & 2022: The Australian’s leading researcher in Visual Arts (highest number of citations over the last 5 years)

2019-2022: International Advisor to Gendered Design in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths, International Development Research Centre, Carleton University, Canada 

2019: CI, British Council Research (UK): Examining Thailand’s Creative Economy and Districts 

2018: Good Design Awards Winner in Social Impact category for ‘Being Wiradjuri Together: Co-designing self-determination’

2016 – 2017: CI, Arts and Humanities Research Council (UK) Research Networking Grant: DESIAP Bangkok 2017 symposium

2016: Lead CI, The Australian Council of University Art and Design Schools Research Grant: Designing for Indigenous Cultural Sustainability 

2014: Good Design Awards, Patron’s Prize & Best in Category for Service Design: Community-centred innovation - co-designing for disaster preparedness

2014 – 2017: CI, Australian Research Council Linkage: Indigenous nationhood in the absence of recognition 

2010 – 2013: CI, Bushfire Co-operative Research Centre (CRC): Effective communication - communities and bushfire 

Talks by invitation

Keynote, 2023 ‘Sailing to the islands’, Circular Design Praxis Symposium, Kyoto Institute of Textiles, Japan, 25-27th Aug

Keynote, 2022 'Learning to Live with Destruction, As Designing', Swiss Design Network, Switzerland, 28 Oct.
Keynote, 2022 ‘Reciprocities of Decay and Destruction’, AMASS Conference, University of Lapland, Finland, 16-18 Feb.
Keynote, 2021 ‘What does it mean to be designing in uncertain worlds?’, Digital Futures International Conference, Multimedia University, Indonesia, 21-24 June.
Panelist, 2020 Futures and Complexity, Future of Development, High Level Strategy Lab, United Nations Development Programme, 11 Nov.
Keynote, 2019 ‘Designing in the peripheries’, London Doctoral Design Symposium, Royal College of the Arts, London 4 Feb.
Keynote, 2017 ‘Kokoro of Design’. NORDES Conference: Power and Design, Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway, 14-16 June.
Keynote, 2016 ‘Generative possibilities of uncertainty’, Media Education Summit, John Cabbot University, Rome, 4-5 Nov.
Keynote, 2015 ‘Mindfulness towards designing futures’ Int. Design Educators Forum of South Africa, Midrand Graduate Institute & Vaal University of Technology, Johannesburg, 2-4 Sept.