Emma Campbell is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the School of Natural and Built Environment at Queen’s University, Belfast. Her research focuses on future relationships between people, food and place in the context of climate change. As a design-researcher, she is really interested in how design and systems-thinking might help to solve some of the wicked problems inherent in food systems today.

Currently, she works within the Innovate UK funded Ideal Home Project in partnership with Moy Park, the UK's largest poultry integrator. The project applies a research-by-design methodology to evaluate, model and recommend best practice in poultry house infrastructure with an aim to increase productivity, improve animal welfare and help the poultry sector meet net zero emissions by 2040.

Emma’s recently completed Ph.D. research applies a similar methodology to consider the emergence, development, and potential futures of supermarket shopping. Her final thesis brings together thematic insights to reimagine a range of different food-retail futures. 

An experience public speaker, Emma has presented her ideas on sustainable food systems at conferences and workshops globally and locally, from Doha to Vancouver, Nicosia to Belfast. In Spring 2021, she recorded a TEDx talk called ‘Can bees help us to design sustainable supermarkets?’ which discusses how the principles of circularity might be embedded in a future food shopping experience.

Emma has taught on QUB Architecture's Undergraduate and Masters courses since 2017, primarily within the Year 1 Architectural Design unit.