Lakshmi Charli Joseph
Co-founder and advisor
Lakshmi is dedicated to the design and implementation of transdisciplinary collaboration processes in sustainability projects. In particular, her work focuses on examining various conditions that enable more meaningful forms of collective action to promote transformative changes toward shared sustainability. To this end, she facilitates methodological strategies and participatory tools aimed at: a) co-constructing a common language in transdisciplinary, multicultural, and/or cross-border groups; b) articulating collaborative methods and tools from science-art-design-play interfaces to create imaginaries of desired futures; c) accompany dialogue processes to reframe stagnant or disconnected visions towards more relational understandings; and d) conduct co-production activities to enact more plural, situated, and just sustainability trajectories.
Fundamental to its work is teaching sustainability through the design and development of learning processes where tools and methods that foster collaboration between different social actors are experimented with. Using participatory action research and transdisciplinary research approaches, she has more than 15 years of experience designing formal and non-formal teaching programs, coordinating and teaching graduate courses, and facilitating international training courses for multicultural groups.
She holds a PhD in sustainability sciences from UNAM, where she also studied biology. She has a master's degree in environmental law, management, and policy (UA-Xalapa) and another in environmental planning and management (IHE Delft). Since 2015, she has worked as an academic at the National Laboratory for Sustainability Sciences (LANCIS, Institute of Ecology - UNAM). She is co-founder and scientific advisor to Umbela, a member of the ITD-Alliance, and a collaborator with the Responsive Research Collective.
