Portraits by Lean Timms

BACKGROUND

Samantha is a multi-disciplinary practitioner based on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country (Canberra, Australia), specialising in participatory design, qualitative research and editorial writing. For over 15 years she has been leading research projects, policy evaluation and lived experience advocacy, thoughtfully provoking government, organisations and decision-makers to invest in conditions for change.

Holding space for care practice and social wellbeing, she believes groundswell initiatives can help to heal individuals and communities. In her own field work, Samantha uses writing, photography and storytelling to bring textured thinking into everyday reading.

SCOPE of practice

  • Qualitative methods, participatory practice, ethnography, quantitative analysis and grounded theory analysis.

  • Reporting, research translation, policy and strategy, essays and editorial.

  • Social wellbeing, lived experience advocacy, policy advisory, co-design and project delivery.

  • Group training, change management, mentoring, co-design support, organisational psychology.

  • Experience design, service design, co-design, human-centred design.

QUALIfications and memberships

  • Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development, 2018

    Bachelor of Science (Psychology), 2014

    Bachelor of Arts (Sociology), 2014

  • Trauma Informed Facilitation (certified 2023)

  • Co-designing with Care (course completed 2023)

  • An ongoing commitment to redistribute wealth and pay the rent, working on stolen land.

  • Child Protection Training (certified 2016)

work history

  • Research Director (2021-current)

  • Research & Policy Advisor (2026)

  • Principal Researcher (2021-2023)

  • Research Lead (2018-2020)

  • Strategic Advisor (2016-2018)

  • Social Worker (2014-2015)

  • Policy Advisor (2011-2014)