Rashmita Bardalai

Dr Rashmita Bardalai is a Lecturer and Joint Program Manager for the Bachelor of Fashion Enterprise at the School of Fashion and Textiles, RMIT University. With over 15 years of industry experience as a textile designer, product developer and client manager across Australia, India and China, she brings a culturally grounded, industry-led and practice-focused perspective to both her teaching and research. 

 

Her research sits at the intersection of material innovation and sensory-emotional experience and inclusive design exploring how material properties, sensory tactile interactions and emotional responses can inform design for wellbeing, sustainability and meaningful product attachment. Building on her work in sensory material characterisation, she investigates the potential of AI-enabled material intelligence to bridge physical and digital experiences in communicating textile haptics and enhancing accessibility in digital environments. Her research also explores the tactit knowledge embedded in traditional craft practcies and its potential to inform regenrative and culturally responsive design approaches. Through interdisciplinary collaborations she seeks to translate materual and sensory knowledge into applications across health, inclusive design, sustainable product develeopment and digital fashion commerce. 

 

Rashmita works closely with industry partners to integrate real-world briefs into the classroom through Work Integrated Learning, equipping students with industry-relevant skills and emerging digital abilities from 3D simulation and augmented reality and AI-driven design tools. She also organises and leads Global Experience study tours to Indonesia and India in collaboration with leading fashion institutions fostering cross-cultural learning and global industry engagement. Bridging industry practice, research and pedagogy, her work contributes to shaping a more inclusive, responsible and innovative future for fashion and design education.

 

Grants:

• 2025: RMIT CEIQ Q4, Inclusive Education Innovation Grants ($4000) for ‘Scalable Framework for Accessible Gamified Learning in Fashion Education’; [Project team: Dr Carolina Quintero Rodriguez (lead), School of Fashion and Textiles (F&T), Dr Rashmita Bardalai (School of F&T), Dr Maria Spichkova (School of Computing Technologies), Professor Michelle Spencer, STEM Hub for Digital Innovation)]
• 2024: International Partnerships Strategic Engagement Community (IPSEC) Southeast Asia Fund ($11,200) to catalyse greater collaboration across curriculum and research between the Fashion Enterprise disciplines in RMIT Melbourne and RMIT Vietnam [Joint application by Dr Carolina Quintero Rodriguez and Dr Rashmita Bardalai, School of Fashion and Textiles]
• 2024: Seed Funding School of Fashion & Textiles ($5000) for ‘All day Everyday Fashion’ [(Dr Tamzin Rollason (lead), Dr Rashmita Bardalai, Dr Emma Lynas, Dr Rebecca Van Amber, Dr Georgia McCorkill (School of Fashion & Textiles) Dr Bhavna Middha (School of GUSS)]
• 2023: Seed Funding School of Fashion & Textiles ($5000) for the project ‘Textiles for the Care Economy: Developing a textile lexicon for health professionals working with people with sensory considerations’ [Dr Rashmita Bardalai, Dr Emma Lynas, Dr Rebecca Van Amber, Dr Tamzin Rollason, School of Fashion & Textiles]

 

Awards:

• 2025: The Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence, RMIT University https://www.rmit.edu.au/staff/our-rmit/awards/2025-awards-for-excellence
• 2025: Tripple E SDG Impact Award - 4th Place https://2025.triple-e-awards.com/finalist/id/1097
• 2023: Doctoral Researcher Award, IFFTI, For the research paper ‘Designing for Sustainable Emotional Experiences: Understanding key variables in attributing emotions to tactile material sensations through the MaTE Toolkit’ In Proceedings of the 25th IFFTI Annual Conference (Vol. 2). https://site.iffti.org/proceedings-iffti-2023/