Hi there, i’m exploring our complex health and ageing futures

As part of the Long COVID Assessment Management and Practice (LAMP) project, I am exploring the experiences of people with long-COVID alongside medical and allied health professionals. Taking an experience-based co-design approach, the aim of this research project is to drive more inclusive models of care for those living with long COVID. Part of the Eat, Move, Heal Network ︎

Focusing on supporting healthier and more resilient networks of care, I coordinated a work package component that investigated the role of community-led, service-enabled, and technology-driven care networks. As part of the Advanced Care Research Centre ︎ and in connection with the Institute for Design Informatics ︎

Designing social engagement technologies with older Australians, my doctorate demonstrated how modes of interpretative flexibility can support interaction designers in co-creating with ageing communities.

Recognising the lack of understanding around the experiences of people with long COVID, I supported a 3-month study mapping patients' experiences, as part of the multi-school, multi-college collaborative research project ‘Eat Move Heal‘ ︎. Our longitudinal mixed methods analysis highlighted the role of agency and social support in their lives

2025, Article
Older Adults’ Digital Competency, Digital Risk Perceptions & Frequency of Everyday Digital Engagement ︎

Aleti, T., Figueiredo, B., Reid., M., Martin, D., Sheahan, J., Hjorth, L.

Information Technology & People

This study explores digital risk perceptions – the perception of risk related to digital environments – among older adults. Specifically, it investigates how these risk perceptions influence older adults' frequency of digital engagement in everyday activities. The study identified six distinct categories of digital risk perceptions among older adults. Furthermore, it found that older adults' digital competencies significantly impacted the frequency of everyday digital engagement.

2025, Article
Playing with persona: Highlighting older adults’ lived experience with digital media ︎

Hjorth, L.,  Sheahan, J.,  Figueiredo, B., Martin, D., Reid, M., Aleti, T., Buschgens, M.

Information Technology & People

In this paper, we focus on the six co-design workshops in which we deployed personas as representations of digital experience to challenge, explore, provoke and help build nuanced tools for implementation. Through personas, speculative fiction and lived experience collide, offering some fascinating ways to rethink the digital-social dimension for older adults now and into the future.

2024, Special Issue
Connecting Older Adults to the Digital World ︎

Figueiredo, B., Sheahan, J.

Social Sciences

︎ Factors Influencing Seniors’ Anxiety in Using ICT ︎ 

︎ Scoping Review of Digitally Delivered Physical Activity and Exercise Programs for Older Adults ︎

︎ Experiences of Digital Transitions in Health and Social Care Services in Later Life ︎

2024, Report
Creating an Alternative Support Pathway for Older Informal Carers ︎

Sheahan, J. & Arakelyan, S.

Advanced Care Research Centre

This report explores the co-design of an alternative support pathway for older informal carers in the UK, focusing on the role of 3rd sector organisations such as older adult daycare centres. Through a series of workshops, we highlight unmet needs, the emotional toll of caregiving, and the importance of culturally relevant resources. We present the informational resources and services co-designed with participants, which integrate into a support pathway based on a six-phase caregiving journey.

2024, Debate Article
Navigating Mediated Kinship & Care Ageing-in-Place ︎

Sheahan, J.

Journal of Anthropology and Aging

Nearly three decades after Marilyn Strathern suggested the implications of technical innovation at birth, today, we are also grappling with technology's impact on later life. As we struggle with a future seemingly trapped by present choice as techno-determinist dogma appears to bind our society, I examine how these new forms of kinship can serve us in realising “desirable” futures with the depth and aspirations so many have for ageing-in-place.