Dr Rebecca McLaughlan is an Australian Research Council DECRA Research Fellow based at the University of Newcastle. For more than a decade, her work has investigated the capacity of architectural design to support wellbeing within healthcare environments. Across palliative care, mental health, oncology and paediatric health care, McLaughlan’s research looks at the perception and use of healthcare spaces: how do healthcare environments make people feel, how can they best support staff in the delivery of patient care, and – with particular relevance for palliative care and mental health – how can design assist in encouraging greater engagement with healthcare systems? It is motived by the suspicion that during times of intense vulnerability architecture has the most profound effect.
