Dr Rebecca Green (PhD) is a Lecturer and researcher at UNSW Art & Design (Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture) and an experienced graphic designer and illustrator. She has qualifications in graphic design and sociology. Her research into the visual communication of Climate Change highlights the significant influence that the language of graphic design can make on the uptake of, and trust in strategic climate messaging. As Academic Lead, 2021 Global Engagement Program at the International Universities Climate Alliance (IUCA), this research is currently at the forefront of IUCA Global Climate Talks and University Hackathon environments. This research is key to similarly complex scientific issues such as vaccination uptake and COVID-19 messaging, and to types of misinformation prevalent on social media. Given the rapid advancement of digital media technology, which has led to the dominance of an even more image-based style of visual communication, the role of the graphic designer in translating these important messages becomes more important every day.

Rebecca has worked as a graphic designer for more than twenty years, moving to academia in 2012. Her experience extends from app design, websites, cartooning and interactive museum exhibitions to 2D and 3D animation, and a later move to sustainable design practice. She was recently selected to speak in a series of UNSW talks and interviews about visual communication in the digital space, predicting drastic change by 2020, with much of the world’s populations indoors and communicating on screen, and that climate change would become a much more salient issue. She has written articles on symbology in digital media, early visual communication of COVID, and on climate change communication.