Michelle Westerlaken

Michelle Westerlaken is an interdisciplinary design researcher specializing in biodiversity technologies and community-based practices. She holds a PhD in Interaction Design from Malmö University (Sweden) and has undertaken postdoctoral research at the Planetary Praxis research group at the University of Cambridge (UK). 

Michelle’s research investigates how emerging biodiversity technologies such as sensors, digital simulations, and digital data infrastructures can be brought in conversation with those communities who are impacted by such innovations. Her research and design works build on Science and Technology Studies and Participatory Design methods to critically and generatively investigate sustainable digital innovation. Over the last decade, her publications have advanced knowledge through collaborative design theory and prototyping practices, engaging a variety of communities including humans, other species, and forests, through the use of various interactive technologies. Expanding the scope of participatory design, she is creating a research program focused on developing community-driven proposals to address environmental challenges.

As an Impact Fellow, Michelle is researching the socio-technical dimensions of nature-based approaches to sustainability, especially in relation to biodiversity. Her goal at the MCSC is to create more multidimensional approaches for understanding biodiversity that inspire alternative environmental futures and technologies.