Associate Professor Lukas Parker is a leading social marketing and advertising scholar whose research sits at the nexus of behaviour change, communicating health and digital advertising. Leading teams of researchers, his research addresses pressing social problems related to health and sustainability. He has over fifty peer-reviewed publications including influential co-authored books Social Marketing and Advertising in the Age of Social Media (2020) and Social Marketing and Behaviour Change: Models, theory and applications (2014) which guide social marketing practitioners and scholars.
Associate Professor Parker’s highly applied research has informed and assessed social and behaviour change communication campaigns and government policy. His recent government and industry partners include VicHealth, Football Victoria, Sustainability Victoria, Woolworths and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC).
Associate Professor Parker is a highly accomplished educator with extensive international experience over two decades, in Australia, South Korea and Vietnam. He currently teaches into the Master of Advertising and Bachelor of Communication (Advertising) degree programs. His teaching intersects with his research and is focused on social change and engaging with industry, government and community. An example of this is his popular course, Wicked Problems: Innovative Solutions challenges multidisciplinary teams of undergraduate and masters students in an intensive series of workshops tackling complex wicked problems that do not have clearly identifiable solutions. It employs a design thinking process where students consider problems through engaging in co-creation with those most connected to the problem (target audience, experts in the field, stakeholders, organisations) to challenge assumptions and to create positive, participant focused solutions.