Generate a tailored SOP for Dr. Rachel Harkness. Improve your application with a focused, well-structured draft.
Rachel Harkness is a design anthropologist working at the intersection of design, social anthropology, and environmental humanities. A Senior Lecturer in Design Ecologies at the Edinburgh College of Art, she teaches in the postgraduate MA Design Change programme and is the Programme Director for Design Change. Harkness holds a PhD from the University of Aberdeen, which focused on ecological building practices and remains central to her teaching and research. Her work has involved extensive engagement with ecological builder-dwellers in Scotland and the USA, exploring concepts of power, labor, and value within social imagination. Additionally, she has coordinated various critical research projects, including an ERC-funded project under Prof. Tim Ingold, and has organized notable seminars and exhibit series that challenge traditional perceptions of environmental values. Her recent investigations delve into materials’ traces within architecture and the role of design in fostering sustainable practices within community contexts. Harkness actively publishes, lectures internationally, and supervises PhD students, concentrating on ecological and design activism, among other topics.
Edinburgh College of Art • Edinburgh
Lecturer in Design Ecologies, Programme Director for MA Design Change.
University of Aberdeen • Aberdeen
Worked on ERC-funded research project 'Knowing Anthropology, Art, Architecture and Design'.
Includes departments such as Fine Art, Sculpture, and Art (Intermedia/Painting/Photography). Entry usually requires a digital portfolio.