Chi Liu is a PhD candidate at the Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne, whose research intersects digital cultural heritage and participatory design. His PhD project facilitates the Olkola People of central Cape York in repatriating, collecting, managing, and sharing Olkola digital cultural heritage through an Olkola-led participatory process.

In 2024, Chi worked as a research assistant at Scanlab, China Academy of Art, where he engaged in developing and managing an online geospatial heritage database, testing 3D scanning technologies, and teaching. He holds an MSc Cum Laude (Highest Distinction) in heritage participatory redesign from Delft University of Technology, Netherlands. His master’s thesis, ‘Participation as a Tool for the Sustainable Redesign of Vacant Heritage: The Case of Politiebureau Groningen Centrum’, was awarded the Dutch WTA Nederland-Vlaanderen Annual Study Prize 2023. He also holds a BArch from Zhejiang University, China. In addition to academic contributions, Chi has professional experience with leading design offices in the Netherlands and China.

His research interests and expertise include:

• Identification, documentation, digitisation, repatriation, reproduction, and transmission of under-threat cultural heritage
• Participatory design and community engagement ethics, theories, approaches, methods, and tools
• Digital design and technologies, including 3D scanning, digital archive, Extended Reality (XR), and digital fabrication, to support the above themes.