Joe leads Design Research Works and is a Senior Research Fellow at Lancaster University.
He is passionate about the value of Design Research, in particular in applying that value to the challenges associated with emerging technologies, rapid societal change, and living sustainably.
Probably best described as a 'generalist' his research practice usually involves material engagements with possible futures.
Saadia is a Project Manager and is the responsible for running the Design Research Observatory project as well as providing a range of other support to Design Research Works.
She has extensive experience in coordinating and managing projects in industry as well as in academia.
Her areas of interest include design, social and societal issues and creating sustainable futures.
Violet is a Senior Research Associate with Design Resaerch Works, researching constructionist approaches to GenAI education in primary schools.
She is a Design Researcher with a background in Education, and her doctoral research focuses on Creative Evaluation.
She is interested in experimenting with playful and joyful approaches to learning, and developing holistic approaches to curriculum design.
You can find her on LinkedIn over here.
Dave was a Senior Research Associate on the project. He is a Design Researcher with a background in participatory documentary making and Human Computer Interaction. His core role on in Design Research Works is to produce a series of documentary films relating to the world of Design Research. Dave left the project in early 2024 to go and work with the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology.
Jesse was a Research Associate on the project, working around generative AI. He draws upon design training, and integrates design research with philosophical analyses to unfold phenomena associated with emerging technologies; such as sense-making practices, design affordances, and how in particular technologies transform the appearance of the world and the things and people in it. He left the project in 2024 to become an Assistant Professor at Eindhoven University of Technology.
May is an interdisciplinary researcher working across design and anthropology. She is interested in the ways in which both areas can work together as world-making processes toward just and sustainable futures. As part of her work in Design Research Work, she explores the concept of an 'Atlas' for the world of Research through Design, while also capturing the values and everyday practices of thinking through making. May left the project in 2023 and is now working at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid.
Andy is a Professor Computer Science and is a Co-Investigator on Design Research Works. He was the first ethnographer to be awarded a Senior Fellowship by the EPSRC which focused on privacy and accountability in the Internet of Things and his work has played a formative role in developing our understanding of Human Data Interaction and challenges in a data society.
Claire was the project coordinator for Design Research Works offering a wide range of support. She has held a range of professional roles within the University and completed a PhD in Educational Research. After 4 years of wonderful service Claire has moved on to new challenges.
Paul Coulton is a mentor to the project and is the Chair of Speculative and Game Design in the School of Design at Lancaster University. He uses a research through design approach to create fictional artefacts from future worlds in which emerging technologies have become mundane.
Miriam is a Lecturer at St Andrews and is a collaborating artist/researcher with Design Research Works. She holds a PhD in digital innovation and has helped pioneer creative sketching to inform the development of novel computer systems and interfaces.
Franziska Pilling was Research Associate and PhD Design Candidate funded by the PETRAS IoT hub, researching design's role in making algorithmic intelligence and its associated systems, processes and misconceptions, more legible to users and designers through alternative practices such as Speculative Design with Philosophy. Fran worked on the Shape of Trust project and has subsequently moved on to become a Lecturer in Interoid Design at Manchester School of Art.
We relish the opportunity to fund some scholarships for visiting designers, artists, researchers, students (and anyone else). If you'd like to visit us.. get in touch!
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