Paula is an award-winning designer and explorer, driven by a deep fascination for circular design, Earth-centred design and futures thinking. She is active in the fields of Material Design, Futures Thinking and Skills Sharing.

Her research into healthy materials has brought new materials, such as ‘Aqua Faba Foam’ and ‘COCOA’. With her work she aims to support the elimination of so called food waste through the creation of circular biomaterials from industrial food production surplus. She initiates discourse around the value of waste as resource and the place of new products and materials in a circular economy. Paula works with global clients, cross-disciplinary collaborations and as a guest lecturer at Universities across Europe.

Paula is currently a PhD candidate at The Hub for Biotechnology in the Built Environment as part of the project The Living Textiles research group led by Dr Jane Scott. Her PhD project The Materiality of Well-being: Desiging living Textile-Bacerial Hybrids is a practise-led research project, searching how sensory qualities of textiles can be adapted through living organisms to express multispecies well-being for the enhancement of the built environment. In particular the multisensory experiences and interactions of smell and touch, with a focus on the interrelationship of bacteria, smell and textiles for enhanced well-being. 

She is a visiting practitioner at the MA Biodesign, teaching in the grow lab and giving tutorials, lectures, and workshops for the first —and second-year master's students.