Study level

PhD

Master of Philosophy

Honours

Vacation research experience scheme

Faculty/School

Science and Engineering Faculty

School of Computer Science

Topic status

We're looking for students to study this topic.

Supervisors

Dr Jinglan Zhang
Position
Senior Lecturer
Division / Faculty
Science and Engineering Faculty

Overview

Our research is seeking to answer the question: 'How can we empower women experiencing a change of circumstance and prevent homelessness?'

This project focuses on proactively preventing homelessness for women. We aim to intervene when housing stress is occurring or likely to occur.

According to the health continuum of prevention, the three stages of harm prevention are:

  • primary - prevent the harm from occurring
  • secondary - attempt to stop existing harm early
  • tertiary - attempt to reduce the impact of established harm.

There are excellent resources available, including helplines or access to emergency housing. However, these resources tend to focus on women in the secondary or tertiary points of intervention. Our aim is to help women at the primary stage.

This project focuses on designing and developing digital solutions that will enable early responders to have conversations with pre-crisis (primary prevention-stage) women to help them access support.

You can discuss with the supervisor if you wish to explore preventing homelessness for other user groups, such as youth.

Research activities

The project scope and activities will vary based on your level of study. You can expect to:

  • undertake a literature review
  • frame specific research questions
  • design solutions addressing the research questions
  • conduct experiments to evaluate your solutions
  • analyse and document your results
  • disseminate your findings in the form of reports, papers and oral presentations.

Outcomes

The project focuses on addressing the information gap for people experiencing housing stress. Intelligent digital solutions with friendly user interface will be designed, developed and evaluated.

Other outcomes from this project include:

  • novel algorithms
  • techniques
  • software prototypes
  • reports and/or research papers.

If you're undertaking a VRES project, you're only expected to join our existing research team and modify or evaluate some of our existing algorithms, software or techniques.

Skills and experience

As the ideal candidate you should have background in any of the following disciplines:

  • computer science
  • information systems
  • data science
  • mathematics
  • engineering majoring in computer and software systems.

You should also have knowledge and skills in computer programming, data analysis or human computer interaction.

Scholarships

You may be able to apply for a research scholarship in our annual scholarship round.

Annual scholarship round

Keywords

Contact

Contact the supervisor for more information.