Dr Sarah Johnstone

Biography

Dr Sarah Johnstone is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) within the QUT Design Lab, and the Health Services Evaluation, Research, and Translation (HSERT) Unit in Queensland Health, where she applies co-design, strategy, and systems thinking to connect people and possibilities.

PhD (Queensland University of Technology), BDes (Queensland University of Technology)

Expertise and Impact: Sarah wields design as a tool to open up spaces for voices, ideas, and possibilities that might otherwise go unseen or underutilised. Her practice blends systems thinking, co-design, and design strategy in complex environments—particularly within healthcare improvement.

Sarah’s work centres on engagement, sensemaking, and co-design: designing tools, strategies, and processes that help people see the bigger picture, navigate complexity, and carry ideas forward in practice. She has applied this approach across diverse contexts—from using arts-based methods in healthcare projects that enhance care pathways, environments, and accessibility; to supporting a statewide healthcare improvement agency to build organisational capability and embed more creative and innovative approaches; to collaborating on a national project equipping multicultural community workers to co-create in-language resources for culturally and linguistically diverse elders.

Across these various projects, Sarah acts as an activator and connector, bridging disciplines and building capacity in others. She is currently exploring how designers act as bridge-builders, strategists, and agents of change—rooted in the belief that the answers are already in the system, and that design creates the conditions for them to emerge. This is exemplified in her work on initiatives that support the scale and spread of healthcare innovation, creating pathways for meaningful and lasting change.