View more on Dr Phillipa Watson in WARP

Expertise

Socio-technical transitions, dwelling practices, housing adaptation, design and adaptation decision making, housing policy; dwelling; housing quality; healthy housing; homemaking; housing disadvantage; household experiences; community change, energy efficiency and energy productivity; sustainable built environments, behaviour-change; distributed energy users.

Research Themes

Phillipa's interdisciplinary research aligns with the University's research themes of 'Environment, Resources and Sustainability', 'Better Health', ‘Creativity, Culture and Society’, and 'Data, Knowledge and Decisions'.

Collaboration

Phillipa has extensive experience working on collaborative projects that involve multiple organisations. Two recent examples of collaboration are provided here.

CONSORT Battery Trial (longitudinal social research 2016-2019)

A consortia project investigating using energy stored at households as network support via batteries, during peak load times. This project examined how the electricity network can work with householder-owned battery systems to help manage the network more efficiently, especially during periods of peak electricity demand. Phillipa was a key researcher on the social research team for this project, overseen by Assoc. Professor Heather Lovell, and was also a key collaborator with all other organisations involved. The project was funded by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency ($2.89 million) and, with substantial in-kind contributions, has a total project value of $7.99million. The consortium was made up of researchers and innovation engineers from The Australian National University (ANU), The University of Sydney (USyd), the University of Tasmania (UTAS), battery control software business Reposit Power and network provider TasNetworks. Final reporta are available at http://brunybatterytrial.org/ .

Get Bill Smart (longitudinal impacts research 2013-2016)

Get Bill Smart was a consortia project funded by a competitive grant provided by the Australian Government’s Low Income Energy Efficiency Program (LIEEP). With an overall budget of $1.4million for the consortium, the research team at UTAS, was funded $360,000. This was an action-research project that investigated the effects of energy efficiency support provided to low income householders in Greater Hobart, in Tasmania. It measured changes to household energy use, thermal comfort, affordability and wellbeing. Phillipa was heavily involved in the design and execution of this project and contributed as a Research Fellow and as Chief Investigator (2016). Reports are available at http://www.slt.org.au/get_bill_smart .

Awards

• 2018 - CONSORT Trial awards (x4) -  Energy Networks Australia Industry Innovation Award; Engineer’s Australia – Tasmanian Engineering Excellence Award; Clean Energy Council’s Community Engagement Award; and Energy Project of the Year by the Electric Energy Society of Australia (EESA) (http://brunybatterytrial.org/). Mention was made of the innovative social research on the Trial and its influence in the granting of the awards.
• 2016 - The Get Bill Smart project won the Environment Award, Tasmanian Community Achievement Awards: Ricoh Business Centre Hobart Environment Award for Get Bill Smart Project (Mission Australia, Sustainable Living Tasmania, University of Tasmania and RED Sustainability Consultants). http://www.utas.edu.au/sustainability/sustainability-performance/sustainability-related-awards/awards
• 2016 - High Flyer Bursary (competitive) ‘An interdisciplinary approach to living in a risky world: Theo Murphy High Flyers Think Tank 2016’, Australian Academy of Science, Canberra.
• 2011 - Bursary - Early Career Researchers Conference with Australian Climate Change Adaptation Research Network for Settlements and Infrastructure.
• 2010 - Bursary - Early Career Researchers Conference with Australian Climate Change Adaptation Research Network for Settlements and Infrastructure.
• 2006 - Doctoral research scholarship, funded by School of Geography, University of Tasmanian and Office of Energy, Tasmanian Government.
• 2005 - Marketing Award for Financing and Innovation in Growth (FIG) Course for investigation into commercialization of research.
• 2004 - CSIRO Team Award for excellence in research for the LCADesign assessment tool.
• 2003 - 2nd prize Thuringowa Climatic Responsive Housing Design Competition group design, Queensland.

Current projects

‘Examining case of Augmented Reality in Practice’ (2018 onwards) - The study is aiming to better understand the potential of Augmented Reality technology to become more widely used in real-world applications. We are interested in capturing and understanding your experiences and opinions of Augmented Reality from the perspective of your roles in the design, construction, and/or manufacturing industries. The research is being conducted by a multi-disciplinary team from the University of Tasmania, school of Technology, Environments and Design (TED). The project lead is Dr Mark Sawyer, Lecturer, Architecture and Design. Other researchers involved are Dr Phillipa Watson, Research Fellow, School of TED; Professor Byeong Ho Kang, Head of Discipline, Information and Communication Technology, Dr Winyu Chinthammit, Senior Lecturer, Information and Communication Technology and Deputy Director, Human Interface Technology Laboratory (HiTLAB). This is a project Phillips has supported as a Head of School research initiative.

‘Exploring the Intersection of Energy Literacy and Financial Literacy in Tasmania’ (exploratory research 2018 onwards) - A UTAS funded project investigating the intersections of financial and energy literacies for vulnerable households in Tasmania. This project draws on awareness from the Get Bill Smart Project (which investigated low income households), and economic and education disciplinary understanding of financial literacies. We know that poor financial and energy literacies in vulnerable households has negative impacts on people’s lives. This $11680 exploratory project is seeking to better understand the intersection of energy and financial literacies in the community in Tasmania, how people draw upon their personal energy and financial literacies when making decisions about the use of energy, and the possible educational interventions that could influence, support, and impact decision-making and energy use behaviours.

‘Industry Transformation in Tasmania’ - A UTAS project investigating: concepts of transformation; challenges industry partners face in collaborating with the university and new opportunities in the future. The research team al sit within the School of Technology, Environments and Design and the project is led by Amy (Chia Chin) Lin.

Publications

Grants & Funding

Projects

Research Supervision

Current