Dr Żaneta Muranko

In her current role at the RCA School of Design, Żaneta is an Associate Lecturer on the MDes Design Futures Programme, teaching interdisciplinary topics including Complex Systems and Research Methods, as well as a cross-college elective on Design Resilience. Previously, she worked as a Senior Researcher at the RCA Materials and Culture Research Centre on a UKRI Textiles Circularity Centre project, where she led research into alternative supply-chain designs for a circular economy – the Social Production Networks. Her work examined the complexity of socio-technical systems and how networks of people, technologies and places support circular flows of resources and value within local communities.

She adopts transdisciplinary approaches and engages diverse stakeholders in her research and teaching practice, creating settings that foster future-thinking and the exploration of socio-technical systems to build a critical understanding of their complexity when designing new interventions, materials, products, services and processes. She collaborates with a wide range of stakeholders, including users, NGOs, local authorities, policymakers and businesses across sectors such as apparel, fast-moving consumer goods, electrical appliances and micro-vehicles. Her previous roles include Impact Fellow at the Circular Economy Hub, University of Exeter, and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College London, where she is currently a Visiting Lecturer. She also has experience working in start-ups and has a portfolio of sustainable innovation projects. Żaneta holds a BSc in Engineering Product Design and an interdisciplinary PhD in Design Engineering focused on remanufacturing and behaviour change.