Core Researchers

Anna Greenspan

Anna Greenspan is Assistant Director of Interactive Media Arts and Assistant Professor of Global Contemporary Media at NYU Shanghai. She holds a PhD in Continental philosophy from Warwick University, UK. While at Warwick, Anna was a founding member of the Cybernetic culture research unit (ccru).  Her current research interests include critical cartography, street markets and the informal economy, wireless media, Chinese modernity and the philosophy of technology.Anna was the cofounder of the Shanghai Studies Society and is also a founding member of the research hub Hacked Matter, which is dedicated to investigating the process of technological innovation in China.  She is currently working on a project on modern Chinese philosophy and the wireless wave. Anna’s latest book Shanghai Future: Modernity Remade was published by Oxford University Press in 2014. She maintains a personal website at www.annagreenspan.com.

Francesca Valsecchi

Francesca is an Italian researcher and practitioner in the disciplines of Interaction and Communication Design. She studied at Milan Polytechnic, and moved to Asia looking for a trans-cultural lifestyle. Since 2010 she is based in Shanghai.

She moved to China as a post-doctoral researcher on sustainable heritage, with the support of the European Union’s “Science and Technology Fellowship” program. She coordinated the Design Harvests project, a social based entrepreneurship intervention of sustainable agriculture in Chongming Island.

She is currently working at Tongji University and Jiangnan University, as consultant, professor and researcher. Francesca’s researches and design process are based on extended ethnographic approach and deep field research. In particular, current researches are affiliated with the international DESIS Network (Design for Sustainability and Social Innovation), where she is active supporter and coordinator of the thematic cluster Rural-Urban, and Digital-Social Innovation.

celebrating shanghai streetfood heritage