Research
Building capacities for climate action through embodied experience
What I’m exploring
My doctoral research explores a specific question: Can multi-sensory, place-based stories of possible climate futures help people develop the capacities needed to think and act sustainably?
This isn’t about information delivery or persuasion. It’s about embodied experience – whether walking through urban spaces, encountering tangible artifacts from possible futures, or creating collages of imagined tomorrows can shift how we perceive climate change, imagine our role in shaping it, and recognize our capacity to act.
Through my PhD at VU Amsterdam, I am developing and testing senstoryscapes, a methodology that combines multi-sensory attention, place-based walking, and stories of possible futures, to see whether and how this approach builds:
- Attention (noticing what’s usually overlooked)
- Agency (recognizing one’s role in systems and futures)
- Imagination (seeing alternatives as possible)
- Connection (to place, to others, to the more-than-human)
These are the capacities sustainable futures require. My research asks: can we cultivate them through experience, not instruction?
This research question underpins everything I do, from how scientists learn to communicate evidence, to how groups work with uncertainty, to how people reconnect with care and possibility in everyday places.
Walk the Futures
An art-based research project within my doctoral work. Come walk possible futures with me.
Walk the Futures: The research in practice
Walk the Futures is the flagship research project testing senstoryscapes as a tool for climate engagement. The work is on-going, however over 18 months and 12 faciltated walkshops, I am exploring:
- Multi-sensory urban walks that heighten attention to place
- Stories of possible futures based on Jim Dator’s four archetypes (Continuation, Collapse, Discipline, Transformation)
- Immersive artefacts that make future scenarios tangible
- Creative collage workshops where participants create their own visions
Research questions at a glance:
- Can senstoryscapes reduce psychological distance from climate futures?
- Does embodied, place-based futures work strengthen agency?
- What role does multi-sensory storytelling play in shifting perception and action?
(Research outputs forthcoming.)
senstoryscapes: A methodology in development
Through my doctoral research at VU Amsterdam, I am developing senstoryscapes, a seven-stage methodology that combines:
- Sensing (multi-sensory attention)
- Storying (narrative imagination)
- Scaping (place-based experience)
The framework guides participants through:
- Grounding – becoming present in place
- Sensing – heightened sensory attention
- Storying – encountering narratives (and in the case of my PhD, narratives of of possible futures)
- Wayfinding – navigating choices and tensions
- Creating – making meaning through participation
- Choosing – identifying personal agency
- Returning – integrating insights into daily life
Why it matters:
senstoryscapes doesn’t tell people what to think or do. It creates conditions for people to:
- Reduce psychological distance from complex challenges
- Experience futures as tangible and relatable
- Recognize their own agency within systems
- Practice new ways of perceiving and relating
This methodology is being tested and refined through Walk the Futures, and informs all my professional practice:
- How I design science communication training (making evidence felt, not just understood)
- How I facilitate futures work (making uncertainty explorable, not threatening)
- How I create walking experiences (making place alive with possibility)
Academic background & research trajectory
Current:
PhD Candidate, VU Amsterdam (2022 onwards)
- Research focus: Developing senstoryscapes, a methodology exploring how multi-sensory, place-based futures experiences can inspire climate action and agency
- Primary project: Walk the Futures
Previous:
MA Classical Studies, Open University (UK), 2021
- Thesis: Lived olfactory experiences in Pompeii (~79 CE)
- Focus: Sensory history, embodied archaeology, place-based meaning-making
BA Honour (Philosophy & English Language), Open University (UK), 2004
So what?
Why this trajectory matters
I’m fascinated by history, people, and how we both change very little and change profoundly over time.
I completed my MA while working full-time, doing substantial work on sustainability at the same time. I loved my MA: it brought together my interest in how people make meaning through embodied experience, allowed me to use storytelling, and gave me my first real opportunity to create experiential, multi-sensory work.
I knew I wanted to pursue a PhD to go deeper. But at the time, with climate change and its impacts weighing heavily on my heart, I couldn’t justify continuing to study ancient history. I needed to DO something in the service of sustainable futures.
So I took my core question:
“How do we understand and shape our worlds through lived, sensory, place-based experience?”
And adapted it:
“How can we shape better futures, and encourage sustainable action, through lived, sensory, place-based experience?”
The methods evolved. The question remained. And the work finally felt aligned. Looking backward through ancient sensory experience taught me how to look forward through futures experiences.
How my research informs my practice
My research isn’t separate from my professional work. It’s both a foundation, and something that is influenced by my professional practices.
In science communication:
- Stories and sensory metaphors help evidence land emotionally, not just cognitively
- Embodied practice (presentation delivery, voice work) builds confidence
- Multi-modal communication reaches diverse audiences
In futures facilitation:
- Scenarios become explorable through immersive, sensory elements
- Uncertainty becomes workable when experienced, not just discussed
- Agency emerges through participation, not instruction
In walking practice:
- Place becomes a partner in meaning-making, not just a backdrop
- Attention is trained through sensory engagement
- Change is understood through embodied movement
Interested in collaborating?
I’m interested in:
- Research partnerships exploring embodied methodologies
- Testing senstoryscapes in new contexts (education, organisational change, civic engagement)
- Publishing and presenting this work to wider audiences
- Supervising or mentoring graduate researchers in related areas
Want to talk? Get in touch →