Skylen imagines Australia could be a whole lot better than it is. She is driven to co-design a society that is more equitable, peaceful, intelligent and beautiful. Skylen believes that everyone, especially the most disadvantaged, should be able to have a part in the design of systems, services and spaces that impact them.

Skylen brings expertise in arts, public space and community cultural development to ThinkPlace drawing on over a decade of experience in the arts for some of Australia’s leading cultural and educational institutions. Skylen designs processes that help community members envision inspiring, healthy and connected public places.

Skylen seeks to understand the greater “why” behind people’s behaviours and to communicate this to her clients. Being both a big picture thinker and highly empathetic, Skylen is easily able to interpret an individual experience in the context of their social environment. She moves easily between the deeply personal and the system perspective to glean accurate cross cutting insights. In her role as a researcher with the Human Insights team, Skylen combines various qualitative research techniques with rigorous desktop research to draw out and synthesise patterns in people’s motivations.  Passionate about research ethics, Skylen builds safety into her research process striving to adhere to the principle; “First, do no harm”.

Skylen has experience working with vulnerable Indigenous communities to co-design improved incentive schemes for disease detection, design culturally appropriate messaging around bowel cancer screening, and to improve disability services in regional and remote locations. Skylen has worked extensively in mental health, co-designing a framework for digital mental health services, improving the NDIS for psychosocial disabilities, and has co-designed a model for Trauma Informed Care from children in the ACT. Skylen has most recently worked with the Department of Education, Skills and Employment to understand the impact of COVID 19 on the aged and disability care sector, providing recommendation for training improvements.

As creative person with a visual eye, Skylen is particularly skilled in illustrating people’s stories, enabling all stakeholders to gain an understanding of complex human problems through graphic visualisation, visual reports, stunning journey maps, models, maps and concept representations.