Angela Rong Yang Zhang
Research Fellow
College of Nursing and Health Sciences
Dr Angela Rong Yang Zhang is a sociocultural anthropologist specialising in aged care, dementia care, lived experience, co-design, digital health, health systems and services, and palliative care, with a focus on cultural understandings of ageing, health and wellbeing. She is currently working as a medical anthropologist at the Research Centre for Palliative Care, Death and Dying (RePaDD), College of Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University, where she contributes to Palliative Care Connect project using digital technologies.
Angela’s research brings together long-term ethnographic fieldwork, medical anthropology and health services research to examine how care is organised and lived in residential aged care and palliative care settings. Her monograph At Home in a Nursing Home: An Ethnography of Movement and Care in Australia (Berghahn Books, 2023) and related publications explore walking, mobility, feeding and everyday routines as sites where institutional logics, risk, autonomy and relationships are continually negotiated. She has written on topics such as restrictions and movement in residential aged care (including during COVID-19), co-design in aged care research, and feeding and agency in end-of-life dementia care.
Her applied research experience spans dementia care, carer support, food provision in nursing homes, and end-of-life care in culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Angela has held roles as Research Associate, Project Manager and Senior Research Coordinator on projects funded by the National Foundation for Australia–China Relations, Aged Care Research & Industry Innovation Australia (ARIIA), Kidney Health Australia, and the Australian Research Council, working closely with clinicians, service providers and consumer partners to translate research into practice.
Angela’s scholarship is grounded in many years of practical care and psychosocial support, including work as an aged care worker, grief counsellor and crisis-line operator in both Australia and China. This embedded experience informs her commitment to research that is relational, ethically attuned and responsive to those who give and receive care. Her emerging program of work explores how digital health, real-time monitoring, predictive analytics, assistive robotics and creative arts can be mobilised in ways that enhance, rather than replace, human care in aged, palliative and long-term care settings.
Master of Public Health (in progress), College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University, Australia – ongoing
PhD in Social Anthropology (Medical Anthropology), The University of Adelaide, Australia – 2020
Thesis: At Home in a Nursing Home: on Movement and Care
Master’s by Research in Medical Psychology and Psychological Counselling and Psychotherapy, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China – 2009
Thesis: Stressors and Suicidality of Middle-aged and Older Crisis Line Callers
Bachelor of Psychology (Honours), Peking University, Beijing, China – 2007
Thesis: Case Analysis of Five Homosexual Men: Adult Attachment Experience
AI for Research Scheme at Flinders University – 2025
Caring Futures Institute Lived Experience Involvement Microgrants – 2025
Emerging Researchers in Ageing (ERA)Conference Bursary – 2015
Australian Postgraduate Award, Australian Government – 2015
In her roles as Research Fellow at the Research Centre for Palliative Care, Death and Dying (RePaDD), Technical Professional (REDCap) on the MRFF-funded SPOCTrial project in the College of Medicine and Public Health, and Adjunct Fellow at the University of Adelaide, Dr Zhang’s key responsibilities include:
Leading and collaborating on qualitative and ethnographic research in aged care, dementia care, palliative and end-of-life care, and digital health, building on her long-term fieldwork in Australian nursing homes and her monograph At Home in a Nursing Home: An Ethnography on Movement and Care in Australia.
Designing, implementing and managing complex research projects, drawing on her experience as Research Associate, Project Manager and Senior Research Coordinator on NFACR- and ARIIA-funded iSupport for Dementia projects, a nursing home food project, and an ARC project on end-of-life care in culturally and linguistically diverse communities. This includes protocol development, ethics and governance submissions, coordination of multi-site and interdisciplinary teams, and preparation of reports and peer-reviewed publications.
Providing specialist methodological and conceptual expertise in sociocultural and medical anthropology, ethnography, co-design and qualitative methods to interdisciplinary teams in medicine, nursing, allied health and social sciences, with particular emphasis on bodily realities, mobility, feeding, risk, and institutional care.
Delivering technical and data-management support for clinical and health-services research, especially through REDCap database design, data quality monitoring and process optimisation for the SPOCTrial point-of-care testing study in remote primary health settings.
Building and maintaining partnerships with clinicians, aged care and palliative care providers, consumer and carer organisations, and culturally and linguistically diverse communities, informed by her prior working experience as an aged care worker, group facilitator and grief counsellor, and crisis-line operator, as well as her voluntary roles in dementia advocacy.
Developing competitive research funding applications by contributing a transdisciplinary understanding of people's experiences of health and wellbeing.
Dr Zhang’s professional and community interests centre on building equitable, person-centred health and social care systems through strong consumer and community involvement, particularly in aged care, dementia care, palliative care and digital health. She is committed to embedding lived experience at every stage of research and service innovation.
Most recently, Angela has led the establishment of the Inclusive Innovation Advisory Group (IIAG), supported by a Caring Futures Institute (CFI) Lived Experience Involvement Microgrant. The IIAG brings together consumer advocates, carers, CALD representatives, service providers and researchers to guide the responsible design and implementation of advanced assistive and digital technologies in home-based aged care and disability support.
Angela is also engaged in creative ageing initiatives that use community arts to support older women’s connection, visibility and wellbeing. These initiatives open up alternative ways of understanding ageing and care, foregrounding older women’s capacities, cultural identities and contributions, while addressing loneliness, loss and social exclusion in sensitive and imaginative ways.
Across these initiatives and activities, she is particularly interested in building long-term partnerships that enable co-designed research, shared decision-making and practical, context-sensitive solutions to complex care challenges.
Sturt Rd, Bedford Park
South Australia 5042
South Australia | Northern Territory
Global | Online
Follow Flinders
