Lynn Harles is a Design Researcher, Curator, and Writer working at the intersection of critical design, natural sciences, multispecies studies, and climate action. She questions, how the needs of human and other-than-human beings as well as different understandings of nature can be considered in the design process.

Since her award-winning Master project, „Design in the Anthropocene,“ in 2016, she has been passionate about collaborating with scientists, environmentalists, and local communities. Her work explores the manifold potentials of design for interdisciplinary and participatory knowledge production, addressing pressing socio-ecological issues such as biodiversity loss and microplastic pollution. 

Lynn sees design research as a means to push academic boundaries and rethink our human-centered understandings of nature, science, and innovation. She has participated in several scientific expeditions, from crossing the North Atlantic Gyre, visiting fishing villages in Ecuador, and engaging in manatee conservation in Florida, to studying remote and nature-related ways of being at the Phugtal Monastery in the Himalayas. These experiences help her understand the impact of the Anthropocene era and its local and cultural meanings.

Her research methodologies combine approaches from Visual Anthropology, Multispecies Studies, scientific field trips with approaches from Design Research and Practice, including Speculative and Critical Design, Multispecies Design, Material Design, and Architecture. 

Lynn gained professional experience as an interdisciplinary design researcher at the Fraunhofer Institute (CeRRI) and the Natural History Museum in Berlin. She has initiated several publicly funded projects, such as the speculative exhibition Food Fictions (funded by BMBF Wissenschaftsjahr 2020|21), and collaborated on interdisciplinary research projects like Transferwissenschaft, Design for Innovation Rwanda (commissioned by Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit), Microsoft Earth Lab, and Userlab in the Netzwerk Naturwissen (MfN).

Currently, she holds a fellowship from Bauhaus-University Weimar, where she is finalizing her PhD titled „Interfacing Natural History Museums as Design Research Labs: From extinct species showcases to multispecies engagement.“ In this project, she wants to build a bridge between Natural History Museums as repositories of nature knowledge and Design Research Labs as a novel form of scientific institution.
Thus, she investigates the potential roles of Natural History Museums as central hubs for eco-social transition from a design perspective on the one hand. On the other hand, she explores the concept „Design Research Labs“ in design education, that follow an interdisciplinary, participatory and responsible modes of knowledge-production and over new pathways to tackle complex socio-ecological challenges.

Additionally, Lynn works as a freelance curator and co-curated the Multispecies Symposium with Dr. Claudia Banz at Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin. She is also a Jury Member of the German Design Graduates Award, together with Dr.Andrea Augsten and Stephan Ott, a Board Member of the German Design Research Society (DGTF), and a lecturer at HMKW (Visual Anthropology).