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Biography

Professor Andrea Cooper received her undergraduate degree from University College, London and her Doctoral degree from The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine UK, where she investigated the interaction between macrophages and protozoan parasites of the genus Leishmania. Moving to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, US she expanded her investigation of leishmaniasis to include the T cell response of patients suffering from cutaneous, mucocutaneous and visceral forms of this disease. She then moved to the Mycobacterial Research Labs at Colorado State University and began studying the protective immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Prior to her move to the University of Leicester she was at the Trudeau Institute, Inc. for 12 years where she held the E.L. Trudeau Chair. The underlying theme of Professor Cooper’s work is the definition of the mechanisms which mediate initiation, expression and regulation of immunity within the lung. There is a current focus on the role of lymphocyte priming in prolonged expression of immunity within an inflamed lung environment. The model used to probe immunity involves Mycobacterium tuberculosis challenge through droplet particles to the alveolar tissue of the lung. The studies contribute to the development of working models of individual susceptibility to tuberculosis and to the development of rationally designed interventions particularly in the realm of vaccine induced cellular responses.

Aoife Donnelly is an Irish, London-based registered Architect, who combines education, practice and research. Aoife leads the M.Arch Architecture program at Kingston School of Art. Research takes the form of built projects, temporary installations, exhibitions and writing,  exploring topics such as participatory practice, democracy and agency over the built environment, radical pedagogies, enmeshing questions of landscape and environment, time and tangible heritage, with cultures of building and making.

Dr. Pranabashis Haldar is a Clinical Senior Lecturer (University of Leicester) and Honorary Consultant Respiratory Physician (University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust). He co-chairs the Leicester TB Research Group (LTBRG) and provides leadership to the Clinical TB Research Programme at Leicester. His primary research interest is the characterisation of important phenotypes of human M. tuberculosis infection to support development and evaluation of novel clinical biomarkers. He has established links with the Crick Institute and works closely with Prof. Anne O’Garra (Francis Crick Institute) on research characterising the host immune response to M. tuberculosis infection in humans. Clinically, he leads the largest rapid access TB service in the UK, providing a pathway for expedited assessment and management of new TB suspects. This clinical service is strongly integrated with an academic platform for the development and evaluation of novel clinical TB biomarkers. His doctoral research investigated clinical phenotypes of asthma and pioneered the widespread adoption of cluster analysis for this purpose. His work led to the characterisation of phenotype specific effectiveness of molecular biological therapies in asthma which inform their development and application today.

Owen Hatherley writes regularly about aesthetics and politics for the Architectural Review, the London Review of Books, Sidecar and Tribune. He is the author of many books, most recently Walking the Streets/Walking the Projects (Repeater, 2024), and The Alienation Effect – How Central European Emigres Transformed the British Twentieth Century (Penguin, 2025). He is a commissioning editor at Jacobin, the presenter of the Inter-Cities podcast for Open City, and the writer and presenter of The Story of Solent City for Radio 4.

Juliet Jacques (b. Redhill, Surrey in 1981) is a writer, filmmaker, broadcaster and academic based in London. She has published six books, including Trans: A Memoir (2015), two short story collections including Variations (2021), Front Lines: Trans Journalism 2007-2021 (2022), and a novella, Monaco (2023). Her fiction, journalism and essays have appeared in the Guardian (including her ‘Transgender Journey’ column, longlisted for the Orwell Prize in 2011), New York Times, Frieze, London Review of Books and many other publications; her short films have screened in galleries and festivals across the world. She teaches at the Royal College of Art and elsewhere, hosted the arts discussion programme Suite (212) on Resonance 104.4fm, and is a co-host of Pro Revolution Soccer. She has played football for Clapton Community FC, Horley Town and Surrey.

Douglas Murphy is a writer and architect. He is the author of The Architecture of Failure (Zero), Last Futures: Nature, Technology and the End of Architecture (Verso). He writes for a wide range of publications on architecture, fine art and photography, and lectures widely. Murphy is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture at Kingston University, where he teaches within the Department of Architecture and Landscape.

Marsha Rosengarten is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. She is Professor Emerita, Goldsmiths, University of London; Honorary Professor with the Centre for Social Research in Health, UNSW Australia; Honorary Professor, Centre for Healthy Societies, USyd Australia. She is the author of HIV Interventions: Biomedicine and the Traffic in Information and Flesh, University of Washington Press, co-author with Mike Michael of Innovation and Biomedicine: Ethics, Evidence and Expectation in HIV Palgrave, and co-editor and contributor with Alex Wilkie and Martin Savransky of Speculative Research: The Lure of Possible Futures, Routledge. She has co-edited a series of special issues and has published over 50 peer-reviewed articles and chapters related to the field of communicable infections. Her work is informed by the process philosophy of A.N. Whitehead, William James and Henri Bergson.  At present, she is collaborating with Dr Nele Jensen (KCL), Prof Kari Lancaster (Bath) and Prof Monica Greco (Bath) on a collection provisionally titled Biomedicine’s Incongruities and on a sole-authored monograph provisionally titled The Time of Infection: Biomedicine, Speculative Thought and The Problem of Novelty. She is also a member of a new initiative to establish an independent Institute of Contemporary Critical Thought.

Dr Jana Scholze is a design curator and Associate Professor at the Kingston School of Art in London heading the MA Curating Contemporary Design in collaboration with the Design Museum. Her transdisciplinary research covers questions around formats of interaction and contemporary design practice engaging with society, technology and the environment. She is a Fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum where she has been previously the Curator of Contemporary and Modern Furniture and Product Design working on acquisitions and exhibitions, such as What is Luxury? (2015). Publications include Medium Ausstellung (Transcript, 2004), Barber Osgerby Projects (Phaidon, 2017) and contributions to series such as Cultures of the Curatorial – Curatorial Things (Sternberg Press, 2019). She is on the advisory board of the Stanley Picker Gallery and Dorich House Museum, Kingston University and the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg, and is peer reviewer for IDEA Journal.

Penny Sparke is Professor of Design History at Kingston University and the Director of the Modern Interiors Research Centre. Her research areas cover modern design, interiors, gender, identity, and nature, and her most important publications include An Introduction to Design and Culture, 1900 to the present (1986, 2004, 2013); Design in Context (1987); Electrical Appliances (1988); Italian Design from 1860 to the present (1989); The Plastics Age (1990); As Long as It’s Pink: The Sexual Politics of Taste (1995); Elsie de Wolfe: The Birth of Modern Interior Decoration (2005); The Modern Interior (2008); and Nature Inside: Plants and Flowers in the Modern Interior (2021).