Ms. Rebecca Nally
Details
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College: School of Design
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Department: School of Design
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Campus: City Campus Australia
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rebecca.nally@rmit.edu.au
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ORCID:
0000-0002-2858-1623
About
Rebecca Nally (Bec/she/her) is a non-Indigenous designer, educator, and practice-based researcher living and working on the unceded lands, waters, and skies of Birrarung-ga (Naarm/Melbourne). An Irish citizen with familial connections to lutruwita/Trouwanna (Tasmania), she brings a reflective and relational approach to design. Her creative practice responds to place through design-led research, storytelling, and public pedagogy. As Creative Director of Public Journal and a lecturer in Communication Design, she works across community, institutional, and cultural contexts—centering self-determination, social equity, and care in both process and outcome.
Research fields
- 330316 Visual communication design (incl. graphic design)
- 330306 Design practice and methods
- 3303 Design
UN sustainable development goals
- 10 Reduced Inequalities
- 4 Quality Education
- 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
- 17 Partnerships for the Goals
- 15 Life on Land
- 14 Life Below Water
Teaching interests
Rebecca teaches into the Communication Design program in Naarm/Melbourne and Singapore, authoring and leading studios such as Hospitable Futures, Regenerative UX, and the Kulin Study Tour. She is an advocate for sessional staff equity and is deeply committed to Responsible Practice and the decolonisation of curriculum on unceded lands. Her teaching is grounded in co-learning, place-responsiveness, and real-world collaboration,
Research interests
Rebecca’s research explores practice-based design, decolonial approaches to design education, and public pedagogy on unceded lands. She is currently investigating how design responds to quiet sovereignties through feminist network theories, with a focus on relationality, self-determination, and the social life of design practice. Her work often draws from research through design, critical race theory, and sovereign relationships to challenge dominant knowledge structures and support more plural and situated ways of knowing.
