DrAdam Poulsen

Dr Adam Poulsen is an ARC DECRA Fellow at the School of Architecture, Design and Planning. Their research centres on technology and vulnerable communities, exploring human-computer interaction, co-design, diversity and inclusion, values, applied ethics, and health, social, and sex technologies. Adam has extensive research experience with various underserved communities, including LGBT+ older adults, older rural Australians, persons living with dementia, persons with physical disabilities, and persons from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Principally, their research seeks to advance equity in technology design and health and social service delivery. Adam employs co-design and value sensitive design methods to actively engage key stakeholders in the design process, as well as to identify, confront, and resolve power imbalances, value tensions, and bias in design. Previously, Adam was a Research Fellow with the Youth Mental Health and Technology Team at the Brain and Mind Centre.

Adam's ARC DECRA project, Sex technology to support sexuality for people with physical disability, examines the role, ethics, and design requirements of sextech, such as sex robots, erotic video games, and romantic chatbots, for people with physical disability in care and support contexts. It centres co-design, lived experience, and queer theory to yield practical insights into the design and use of value-sensitive, ethical sextech in disability care and emphasises transformation, breaking stigma, and empowerment for this community.