Rate My Professor Wendy Ellerton

Wendy Ellerton is a lecturer in the Department of Design within Monash University’s Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture. She holds the position of Program Coordinator for the Collaborative Design specialization and serves as Unit Coordinator and Chief Examiner for Design Studio 1. Ellerton’s academic background includes a Master’s degree in Type and Media from the Koninklijke Academie van Beeldende Kunsten (KABK) Royal Academy of Art in the Netherlands, completed in 2005 with the project Imogen - A humanist sans in 8 weights; an Honours Degree of Bachelor of Visual Communication in Design, awarded in 2002 featuring Ferrara a classical serif typeface; and a Bachelor of Design (Visual Communication), granted in 2001. Currently, she is in the final stages of her Doctorate by Research in the Department of Design, part of the WonderLab PhD Research Cohort, with research centered on the relationship between learner mindsets and multi-modal teaching.

With more than two decades of professional practice, Ellerton worked as a Communication Designer at Hofstede Design and Studio Round for nearly a decade, consulted for Future Days and Maythorpe, and founded her studio Polar Space in 2014, specializing in identity, publication, packaging, type, and furniture design. She served as Teaching Associate at RMIT University from 2016 to 2017, taught masterclasses for the Australian Graphic Design Association, mentored design academics in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and conducted workshops in Florence, Milan, Beijing, and Italy. Her research interests span collaborative design, practice as research, creativity and innovation, transformative learning, design pedagogy, feedback and assessment, and communication design. She collaborates with the Monash University Climate Change Communication Research Hub and contributed to the inaugural AI in Education Learning Circle, aligning with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals including quality education, sustainable cities and communities, climate action, and partnerships. Key publications are the article “The Human and Machine, 2022-23: Open AI, ChatGPT, Quillbot, Grammarly, Google, Google Docs & humans*” in Visible Language 57(1), 38-52 (2023), and the design work “Changing Climates” (2020). Among her awards are the 2025 ACUADS Excellence in Teaching Award (with A. Killen), Vice-Chancellor’s Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning (2025, with J. Lee and I. Hwang), Vice-Chancellor’s Excellence Award for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (WonderLab Team, 2024), QS Reimagine Education 2024 Awards shortlist (with A. Killen), and SEED/ing Transformative Change (2022, with L. H. Grocott).