Life-centred design: skills for an uncertain future

“How might our skills change when design is not human-centred but life-centered?”, asks Rob Maslin for SDFF 2020: in other words, considering both people and planet. Equity lies at the heart of this question. I ask what parallels and lessons we might draw from three areas of profound challenge and risk – climate change, coronavirus, and my own experience of cancer – to help us navigate uncertainty and design a better and more just future.

Tamsin Edwards is specialising in quantifying the uncertainties of climate model predictions, particularly for the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheet contributions to sea-level rise.

She is a Lead Author of the forthcoming Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (to be published in 2021) and a Contributing Author to the IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (2019).

Tamsin regularly advises the UK Government on sea-level rise, climate science and science communication, and provides expert comment to international media and business. She is an award-winning communicator, including through Twitter (@flimsin), her blog for the Public Library of Science, PLoS (All Models Are Wrong) and articles for the Guardian.

She is also the director of the MSc Climate Change: Environment, Science and Policy.

Tamsin regularly appears on various news outlets as an expert commentator for climate-related news stories, included BBC News at 10, ITV News, BBC R4 Today Programme.