Nicole Kalms is a Professor in the Department of Design and founding director of the Monash University XYX Lab which leads national and international research in Gender and Place. Nicole is the Associate Dean of Research for the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture.

Nicole has a PhD in Architecture from Monash University. She obtained her Bachelor Degree in Architecture from RMIT and practiced architecture for several years before undertaking a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture (RMIT). Nicole is a full-time member of Monash University’s Faculty Art, Design and Architecture where she is focused on cross-disciplinary research.

Professor Kalms’ scholarly contributions include the edited book Contentious Cities: Design and the Gendered Production of Space (Routledge 2021), the monograph Hypersexual City: The Provocation of Soft-Core Urbanism (Routledge 2017) examining sexualized representation and precincts in neoliberal cities. Her recent monograph She City: Design Out Women's Inequity in Cities (Bloomsbury 2023) draws on interdisciplinary research from gender scholars, design practitioners, and feminist activists to update the significant research on gender and the city.

The innovation of Kalms’ research is the examination of digital, experiential, political and material interventions collated to articulate both the shared and conflicted struggles of minoritised communities internationally. Her praxis repositions design as a strategic tool for challenging inequity.

Professor Kalms regularly writes for a diverse non-academic audience, and is frequently invited to speak to the public about identity and urban space at major national and international cultural institutions. Kalms has been interviewed on BBC World News and France 24 TV. Dr Kalms serves on a variety of advisory boards, committees and design panels in relation to public policy, urban safety and placemaking.