About the centre

Last updated 12 May 2022

Research in the Materials Science Research Centre focuses on the invention and the experience of materials to address real world challenges, specifically environmental sustainability, and human health and wellbeing.

Workshop on Digital Fashion Tools, 2015 (Bruna Petreca)

Our ambition in materials science research is to enact paradigm change in the way materials are designed and developed, with two key approaches:

Firstly, our aim is for materials and the experience of materials to be designed within interconnected systems, taking into account macro-environmental factors and layers of community.
Secondly, our aim is to integrate Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) approaches with Art & Design (A) to generate new STEAM methodological frameworks that support new, more desirable outcomes for materials and materials experience.

Director

Sharon’s research is focused on advanced interdisciplinary human-centred design methods to create new ‘Product Cultures’, as a strategy for post-Industrial Design in the age of the Anthropocene, that de-couple the use of materials resources from human wellbeing and economic development, in the context of the Fab City, where cities are locally productive whilst being globally connected.

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Senior Research Fellow in Human Experience and Materials

Bruna is a design researcher and practitioner whose research engages with and develops a deeper understanding of the sensory characterisation of materials.

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Senior Research Fellow in Materials Circularity for Distributed Manufacture

Miriam’s research innovates design methodology for transdisciplinary material design approaches that integrate methods from materials science and biotechnology in order to nurture new socio-ecological systems.

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