Ann Light is Professor of Design at the University of Sussex, UK (emerita) and at Malmö University, Sweden.
Ann Light is a leading design researcher and interaction theorist, specializing in participatory practice, human-technology relations and collaborative future-making with a focus on the more-than-human. She has been researching the role of immersive and participatory techniques for eco-social change for a two year AHRC fellowship, exploring coastal futures. This has resulted in a book collection: “Designing Immersive Participatory Practices for Enacting Eco-Social Transformations: Playful Encounters, Recovering Futures” (Open Access at: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003660187/designing-immersive-participatory-practices-enacting-eco-social-transformations-ann-light-harry-lewis).
Her 25-year research career has focused on the politics, ethics and agency of design, and especially co-design in communities, exploring social activism at neighbourhood level, investigating the design of sharing structures and questioning the boundaries of participation. Regarding the social and ecological as inextricably linked, over the last few years she has turned to consider climate collapse and the stress that current systems put on the planet, believing creative remaking of relations is needed for liveable futures and looking at ways that socially engaged art and design can find potential in difficult places and offer visions of fairer worlds. She has been multiplied funded by the AHRC, EPSRC, ESRC and the EU, successfully (co)leading 30 UKRI projects, and worked with arts and grass-roots organizations and marginalized groups on five continents, in local, transnational and international development settings. In 2025, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from Aalto University’s art and design faculty. Her original PhD, completed in 2000, explored people’s experience of interaction with websites and her work draws on professional experience from the design sector in addition to qualifications in humanities, arts, artificial intelligence and computer science. She is co-author of Designing Connected Products (O’Reilly, 2015) and co-creator of the CreaTures Framework, prepared as part of the EU project Creative Practices for Transformative Futures (CreaTures: https://creaturesframework.org), which won the Ziman Award in 2024.
She recently completed work on Social Justice in the Digital Economy (https://not-equal.tech), a UK platform for research into more equal societies. Prior to her research career, Ann worked in the design industry for several years, coaching designers and strategizing with senior management as well as working with a range of organisations on design scenarios and sustainable futures. She is moving back towards consultancy as she takes leave of her day job at Sussex and becomes Emerita.
She is researching how creative practices can promote eco-social transformations though a variety of projects:
CreaTures: www.creatures-eu.org
CreaTures Framework: https://creaturesframework.org
Not Equal: https://not-equal.tech
Bauhaus of the Seas Sails (BoSs): https://bauhaus-seas.eu
ReWorlding: https://www.uhasselt.be/en/onderzoeksgroepen-en/arck/spatial-capacity-building/reworlding
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