Dr Jennifer Dranttel is an interdisciplinary designer, educator and researcher specialising in BioDesign, material innovation and regenerative design. She is a University Teacher in Textile Design at 海角社区 University, teaching material development, textile testing, research methods, speculative futures and studio practice. Her relational approach brings together philosophy, participatory practice and material culture to examine how innovation emerges through relationships between people, place and materials.
Jennifer trained as an architect at the University of Colorado before completing an MFA in Fibres at the Savannah College of Art and Design and a PhD in Sustainable Textile Technology at De Montfort University. Her doctoral research developed the Material Re-Mixing methodology and Transitional Textile Design framework through participatory work with communities in Mongolia’s peri-urban ger districts. Her research challenges conventional approaches to biomaterial innovation by connecting design and material science with Indigenous knowledge and regenerative practice.
Jennifer has taught in the United States, Mongolia and the United Kingdom, including at De Montfort University, the British School of Ulaanbaatar and Savannah College of Art and Design. She previously served as Programme Leader for BA (Hons) Textile Design and currently co-leads 海角社区’s Regenerative Pedagogy initiative, supporting the integration of sustainability and green skills across design education.
She is a member of the BioFutures for Transplanetary Habitats research group at Newcastle University and the TEAM Research group at De Montfort University, and a founding member of 海角社区 University’s PLANETarium community of practice.
Jennifer's research sits at the intersection of BioDesign, regenerative design, textile innovation and participatory design. Her work investigates how living materials, biomaterials and traditional craft knowledge can contribute to more culturally responsive and environmentally regenerative futures. She explores the relationships between materials, communities and place, with a particular focus on Mongolia and nomadic cultural practices.
Her research has been presented internationally at conferences including the Transition Design Conference (Mexico City), the BioDesign Conference (Delft), the World Design Congress (London), Climate-U (Belém and Nairobi), COP28 (Dubai), the Max Planck Institute’s MATTER Symposium (Berlin) and Living Textile Architectures Conference (Newcastle). Jennifer's work has been published in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, and she serves as a peer reviewer for Humanities & Social Sciences Communications (Springer Nature) and Journal of Textile Design Research and Practice (Taylor & Francis).
Jennifer teaches across the BA (Hons) Textile Design programme, where she leads modules in textile testing and material development, research methods, speculative futures and studio practice. Her teaching combines research-informed practice with interdisciplinary approaches to design, encouraging students to engage critically with sustainability, emerging materials, systems thinking and regenerative and holistic futures.
She has expertise in research methods, academic writing and supporting students in the development of rigorous independent research projects.
Module contributions include:
- ACA190 – Textile Design Practice (Module Leader)
- ACB291 – Research Methods for Textiles (Co-Module Leader)
- ACB217- BioDesign (Module Leader)
- ACB293 – Emerging Design Methods (Module Tutor)