The School of Modern Languages and the School of Computer Science are pleased to offer a funded doctoral scholarship - Designing Techno-Cultural Ecologies: Prototyping Critical and Creative Interactions with Biodiversity.

The scholarship is available for start in the 2026-27 academic year and comprises a full-fee award and stipend for 3.5 years. The scholarship is open to UK and international applicants.

The successful applicant will be supervised by Dr Loraine Clarke (School of Computer Science) and Dr Damiano Benvegnù (School of Modern Languages).

Project

This interdisciplinary PhD project investigates how digital technologies can be reconfigured to explore new frameworks for engaging with biodiversity.

At a time of ecological crisis, when biodiversity loss remains less publicly understood and less culturally visible than climate change, the research seeks to rethink how knowledge of the natural world is produced, mediated, and shared. It offers an original contribution by integrating environmental humanities, design research, and digital fabrication to prototype new forms of technological engagement that do not merely represent biodiversity but recompose our ways of knowing and relating to it.

The research centres on the herbarium at the St Andrews Botanic Garden, an internationally significant but currently inaccessible archive of preserved plant, algal, and fungal specimens. This collection encapsulates both scientific data and socio-ecological histories, yet its epistemic potential has lain dormant for over four decades. The project aims to reactivate the herbarium as a “techno-cultural ecology,” a hybrid site where biological archives, digital systems, and human perception intersect to produce new forms of understanding. By creating tangible, embodied, and embedded digital interactions, the student will explore how technology can mediate encounters between people, archives, and living ecosystems, thus transforming the herbarium from a passive collection into a generative knowledge environment.

The research is motivated by three interlinked observations. First, public engagement with biodiversity remains limited, in part because conventional scientific and digital representations abstract ecological knowledge from lived experience. Second, the epistemological division between nature and culture continues to restrict how biodiversity is valued and studied. Third, while interactive technologies have advanced rapidly, they often reinforce distance from the physical world rather than facilitating sensory and material engagement. This PhD will move beyond these limitations by using Tangible, Embodied, and Embedded Interaction (TEI) to create digital artefacts and installations that operate as experimental epistemic tools: objects through which new ways of sensing and conceptualising biodiversity can emerge.

The project’s epistemological innovation lies in reconceiving the role of digital technology not simply as a representational medium, but as an epistemic partner in ecological inquiry. By designing systems that operate through touch, movement, and spatial interaction, the research will develop alternative modes of knowing that are embodied, participatory, and situated. These prototypes will serve as research probes to explore how digital infrastructures might support sustainable, relational understandings of biodiversity in both scientific and cultural domains.

The supervisory team – spanning digital interaction design, environmental humanities, and botany – provides the ideal environment for this work. The student will benefit from guidance in both critical theory and technical practice, gaining the intellectual independence required to bridge multiple disciplinary methodologies. Regular supervision meetings, joint workshops at St Andrews Botanic Garden, and participation in interdisciplinary research networks at the University will ensure robust academic support and opportunities for collaboration. The anticipated outcomes include digital artefacts, exhibitions, and scholarly publications that demonstrate how technological design can contribute to epistemological renewal in environmental research.

The research is grounded in an accessible and well-documented collection, supported by institutional expertise and facilities in both Schools. The research plan proposes iterative prototyping, field testing, and dissemination, drawing on established research methodologies, ensuring a manageable and coherent doctoral trajectory.

Aligned with the University’s strategic themes of Sustainability, Cultural Understanding, and Evolution, Behaviour, and Environment, the project will contribute to building institutional capacity in interdisciplinary ecological research and digital innovation. In sum, this PhD will make a distinctive world leading contribution through theoretical and practical knowledge at the intersection of technology, biodiversity, and culture, thus helping to reimagine how universities, heritage institutions, and communities engage with the living world in the twenty-first century. 

Further information

See the funding catalogue for further information and full terms.

Please apply for the scholarship after you have submitted your application for a place at St Andrews.  You do not need to wait until you have received an offer of a place before applying for the scholarship.

Research degrees in the School of Modern Languages

The School of Modern Languages at the University of St Andrews is one of the largest and most diverse of its kind in the UK.

The School has an exceptionally broad variety of research interests ranging from the medieval period to the present day and engages with literatures and cultures from around the world. It was ranked first in Scotland in the most recent UK national research assessment exercise - more than 80% of the School's research and impact was judged to be world-leading or internationally excellent. The School of Modern Languages is home to three research centres and one research institute and the annual Byre World programme brings together staff, students, and guests in events that share the School's research with the wider University and the public.

As a doctoral student in the School of Modern Languages you will be part of a vibrant interdisciplinary research community. You will work with academic supervisors who will provide you with subject expertise and guidance to help you plan and manage your research while the University's researcher development programmes give you the skills you need as an independent researcher.

Learn more about research degrees with the School of Modern Languages.