Textiles Circularity Centre

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.

Professor Phil Purnell is Visiting Professor at the Materials Science Research Centre.

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.

Dr Alexandra Lanot is a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Novel Agricultural Products (CNAP) at the University of York. Working in the Professor Simon McQueen-Mason team, she manages projects aimed at developing lignocellulosisc material as a feedstock for biorefineries. After completing a masters degree in chemistry, she worked at Unilever, Colworth house on rape seed oil before obtaining her PhD from Aberystwyth University studying flavonoids in Lotus corniculatus. She has since spent her career in CNAP working on a broad range of plant cell wall projects such as lignin biosynthesis in the model species Arabidopsis and cellulose accumulation in hemp fibres. A BBSRC Follow On Fund which developed a feedstock agnostic approach to producing bioethanol that reduces the constraints of feedstock availability and seasonality and a LB-Net BIV, gave her the opportunity to scale up her process to a litre scale and to initiate Technico Economic Analyses. Currently, she manages several projects based on the production of bacterial cellulose from cellulosic wastes (BBSRC Super Follow On Fund, BBSRC POC and the EPSRC Textile Circularity Centre). Alexandra Lanot’s expertise lies in developing research that can be scaled-up and managing interdisciplinary projects of various sizes.

Roberta is part of the Bio-manufacturing Textiles from Waste project funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

Professor Steve Evans is Visiting Professor to the Materials Science Research Centre.

Gareth’s interest is creativity, combining ideas from anthropology, psychology, engineering and design, and has led international transdisciplinary research projects both in academia and industry.

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

Carey Jewitt is Professor of Technology and Learning at UCL Knowledge Lab in the Dept of Culture, Communication and Media (IOE), and Chair of UCL Collaborative Social Science Domain. Her work explores how the use of digital technologies shape interaction and communication, engages with interdisciplinary methodological innovation and contributes to the development of multimodal theory. She is Director of InTouch an ERC Consolidator Award which investigates the sociality of digital touch technologies for future communication. She has led many interdisciplinary research projects funded by the ERC, ESRC, EPSRC, and the British Academy. Carey is a founding editor of the new Multimodality & Society journal, and Visual Communication (both published by SAGE). Her recent publications include articles in New Media & Society, Information, Communication & Society, Qualitative Research, The Senses and Society, and the book, Interdisciplinary Insights for Digital Touch Communication (2020).

Marianna Obrist is Visiting Professor to the Materials Science Research Centre.

Katerina Fotopoulou, is Professor of Psychodynamic Neuroscience at University College London, leading award-winning research on the mental-physical health interface, including the European Research Council programme grant METABODY (www.fotopoulou.com). Katerina has published more than 100 scientific articles and has received several awards for her research, including the Distinguished Young Scientist Award (2014) by the World Economic Forum and the prestigious Early Career Award of the International Neuropsychology Society (2016). She is the co-founder and Treasurer of the International Association for the Study of Affective Touch (IASAT), board member of the European Society for Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, the Co-Chair of the International Convention of Psychological Science (ICPS) programme committee, the past Secretary of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society, and the editor of the volume: Fotopoulou, A., Conway, M.A., Pfaff, D. From the Couch to the Lab: Trends in Psychodynamic Neuroscience. Oxford University Press, 2012. In the UKRI Textiles Circularity Centre, Katerina uses ideas from how the brain achieves sustainability and mental wellbeing to inform how our economies and societies can become circular and sustainable.

Dr Danielle Barrios-O’Neill is a groundbreaking scholar in the field of experimental education, recognised for her work developing novel post-disciplinary methods of advanced serious play for societal change.

Nadia Bianchi-Berthouze is a Full Professor in Affective Computing and Interaction at the University College London Interaction Centre (UCLIC). Her research focuses on designing technology that can sense the affective state of its users and use that information to tailor the interaction process. She has pioneered the field of Affective Computing by investigating how body movement and touch behaviour can be used as means to recognize and measure the quality of the user experience. She also studied how full-body technology and body sensory feedback can be used to modulate people’s perception of themselves and of their capabilities to improve self-efficacy and coping capabilities. Her work has been motivated by real-world applications such as physical rehabilitation (EPSRC Emo&Pain, H2020 EnTiMeMent), textile design (EPSRC Digital Sensoria), education (H2020 WeDraw) and wellbeing (Intelligent Embodied Interaction, EPSRC; H2020 Human Manufacturing). She has published more than 200 papers in Affective Computing, HCI, and Pattern Recognition.

Lili Golmohammadi is a collaborative researcher, designer, and facilitator working across design, technology and social science. Her interdisciplinary practice draws on a wide variety of media, methods and processes, including a close engagement with materials and design-led approaches. She a Research Fellow on the TCC CX Research Strand, and a final-year doctoral researcher attached to the IN-TOUCH project at University College London, her research exploring the relationships between loneliness, touch and emerging touch technologies. Recent publications include ‘How to Use Online Probes for Social Science Research’ in SAGE Research Methods: Doing Research Online (2022, in press), and ‘Touch’ – a co-edited special issue for the Journal of Multimodality and Society (2022, in press). She is also the presenter of Together We Create, a new podcast series from the UCL Collaborative Social Science Domain, about the benefits and challenges of taking an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach to research. Lili’s recent roles include researching and teaching Design Education at Goldsmiths University, teaching Cultural Studies at London College of Fashion and Kingston University, and Fashion Design at the University of Lincoln. She also has extensive experience devising and leading community-based arts projects.

Temitayo Olugbade is an applied machine learning scientist with particular focus on modelling human behaviour and/or experience, usually for the purpose of informing personalisation of feedback or support through digital technology. She has explored behaviour and experience modelling within a variety of application domains including healthcare and child education. She has strong interests in bringing technologies with such capabilities to the real world where they can be of value to people in their everyday lives. She has a PhD in Affective Computing from University College London and background in computer science with an undergraduate degree in Computer Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University (Nigeria) and a Masters in AI from University of Sussex (UK).