Lisa’s research, teaching and practice are curiosity driven and cultivate a desire to learn anew as sites in need of investigation emerge, or as new challenges that require careful thought, come to light. Lisa draws on artistic research and practice to open up new interpretations of particular landscapes and to constantly challenge and question her own positionality as a designer.

All dimensions of her praxis are united by a commitment to exploring open and indeterminate forms of engagement that empower people to participate in processes of landscape change amid the climate and biodiversity crisis. While her work is deeply site-specific and locally grounded, it is driven by a broader commitment to encouraging students and communities to become responsible members of the wider bio-community.

Current research in the Highlands of Scotland focuses on “Firth” landscapes — coastal inlets and estuarine environments — and the communities facing increasing uncertainty due to rising sea levels and the damaging effects of dominant economic rationales. Together, these pressures threaten the future of marine and landscape life-worlds that urgently require new forms of recognition, care, and governance. Within these coastal margins, design research is used to speculate on alternative geographies of responsibility that prioritize ecological relationships in territorial organization. Through design, new configurations between territories, infrastructures, and the durational consequences they create for all living systems can be imagined and explored.

In Guatemala, Lisa’s research contributes to interdisciplinary projects that explore creative practice to support Disaster Risk Reduction. Working alongside Indigenous communities, the research documents and represents socio-ecological relationships within living landscapes. The work is highly field-based, place-specific, and historically grounded. Its methodologies are embedded within the landscape itself, prioritizing shared forms of knowledge production to better understand the complex relationships between people and nature and the way they manifest in both inclusionary and exclusionary ways in everyday life.
Across both the Scottish Firth landscapes and Guatemalan life-worlds, Lisa’s research engages directly with the material forces of living landscapes in order to challenge generalized assumptions and dominant perspectives. Through careful and collaborative engagement with those who inhabit these places, the work seeks deeper understandings of past and present relationships, while helping to shape more just and ecologically responsible frameworks for the future.