Making Spaces Advisory Group

We want to make sure that what we do is relevant and impactful in the makerspace community. One way we aim to do this is by working with an advisory group who we have identified to cover a range of sectors and expertise. Throughout the project we meet with the group to discuss key moments in our research. As well as all our makerspace partners, we have currently 8 advisory board members. You can read their bios below.

Abdul Rauf

Pakistan Science Club		Abdul Rauf is the founder and CEO of the Pakistan Science Club which has been established since 2008. Pakistan Science Club runs science shows, STEM workshops, STEM camps and the like since 2008. For the past 5 years, they have also focussed on building STEM clubs and maker spaces in schools and colleges. They are also aiming to address a number of challenges in building a sustainable model of makerspaces.
Dr Amy Hurst

New York University		Amy Hurst is an Associate Professor at New York University (NYU) with a joint appointment in the Occupational Therapy Department in the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development and the Technology, Culture and Society Department in the Tandon School of Engineering. She also serves serving as the Director of the Ability Project, an interdisciplinary research space dedicated to the intersection between disability and technology. Her work primarily focuses on working closely with end users to understand accessibility challenges and the potential for novel assistive technologies to address them.
Daniel Charny MBE

Kingston University		Charny is a designer, educator and creative director recognised for a range of culturally significant projects, from the Power of Making exhibition to the global Maker Library Network and award winning Fixperts learning programme. He is co-founder of Forth, a London based creative studio which develops new models for creative engagement and learning. Charny advocates for design, creativity and making as essential tools to unlock a better future. Under this banner he contributes to conferences, design juries and professional advisory boards and has lectured and run workshops around the world from China to Mexico. He is Professor of Design at Kingston University.
 
Dr Dorothy Jones Davis

Nation of Makers		Dorothy joined Nation of Makers as its Executive Director in March 2017. She envisions Nation of Makers as a collaborative community, where organizations of different types can learn from one another and share best practices. She is deeply interested in finding ways to create connections between a diversity of makers, leveraging their collective skills to harness solutions for the world’s challenges, grand and small. Dorothy’s interest and passion for making began when she was a child, from tinkering with broken electronics with her dad, to learning about the crafts her ancestors made as members of the Cherokee and Blackfoot Tribes. Dorothy received a B.A. in Psychobiology from Wellesley College, and a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Michigan.
Professor Edna Tan

University of North Carolina at Greensboro		Edna Tan is Hooks Distinguished professor of STEM education at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Her collaborative research investigates what constitutes equitable and consequential science and engineering learning for historically underrepresented, minoritized youth across learning contexts and over time. Her work is also focused on understanding how youths’ experiences across science-related settings and across time can be studied and understood as holistic experiences, rather than siloed in particular formal or informal settings. Dr. Tan’s research team employs critical, longitudinal ethnographic and design-based research methodologies so as to maintain a nimble, research-based response to address inequitable practices in minoritized youths’ STEM learning, throughout the life of the research study. 
Eva Ernsten

Brightbox 		Eva is Lead Makerspace Programmes Coordinator at Brightbox. Brightbox partners with libraries and their communities to co-create community-embedded makerspaces where people can meet role models, access resources and nurture their passions. They share experiences and expertise from working with libraries and grassroots organisations and have created makerspace workshops for over 10,000 people. Eva is passionate about making the world a fairer and more connected place, particularly through shared skill-building and decision-making opportunities. At Brightbox, Eva designs and deliver makerspace provision for young people, she is currently leading on their Future of Food project, the Youth Maker Club, and Community Build projects. 
 
Dr Stephen Alkins

TERC		Stephen D. Alkins, Jr., Ph.D. is the Diversity, Equity, Access, Inclusion (and Belonging) Officer (DEAIBO) and Co-chair of the DEAIB Council at TERC. TERC is an independent research-based non-profit organization dedicated to inspiring and engaging learners through stimulating research, materials and tool development, and professional development.  With his leadership, Stephen helps craft and implement the vision for DEAIB at TERC. He also helps research teams employ critical DEIB frameworks (e.g. Decolonization, Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, Social Capital Theory, etc.) to help dismantle systemic inequities within STEM education, support youth STEM identity development, and engage and include underrepresented/marginalized communities in authentic, collaborative research experiences.
Dr Tim Slingsby

Llyod’s Register Foundation		Tim is Director of Skills and Education at Lloyd’s Register Foundation, an independent global charity with a unique mission: engineering a safer world. The Foundation enhances the safety of the critical infrastructure that modern society relies upon. It does this by supporting high quality research, accelerating technology to application and through education and public outreach. The Foundation supports a huge diversity of work; from the world’s largest 3-D printed metal structure to the first-ever global study of worry and risk; from providing skills for safety in SE Asia to the safe development of robotics. Tim previously led STEM education and public engagement in science work at the British Council.