Michelle Christensen

Michelle Christensen is a sociologist and designer, exploring the spaces in between these realms. Her research interests include trans- and postdisciplinarity, the politics of design, and the democratic potentials of free and open technologies. She co-heads the research group Design, Diversity and New Commons at the Berlin University of the Arts / Weizenbaum Institute together with Florian Conradi. She is a Principal Investigator in the research cluster Matters of Activity at the Humboldt University of Berlin, a member of the Board of International Research in Design (BIRD) at Birkhäuser in Basel, and in 2023 she joined the Board of Directors of the Einstein Center Digital Future (ECDF) in Berlin.

Michelle wrote her Ph.D. in the field of Design Research at the Berlin University of the Arts. Prior to this, she studied political sociology, conflict studies, gender studies, and integrated design. She has worked at the Crisis Department of Amnesty International USA, was a Humanity in Action Fellow (HiA), and a Congressional Fellow in the United States Congress in Washington DC. As a researcher, she has worked at the Design Research Lab (UdK Berlin), the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), and from 2018-2022 she lead the research group Critical Maker Culture at the UdK Berlin / Weizenbaum Institute. From 2019-2026, she was a visiting professor for Open Science & Critical Culture at the Technische Universität Berlin and the Einstein Center Digital Future, and from 2025-2026 she was a visiting professor at the international Master program in Integrated Design at the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in Dessau.

Her research, teaching and experimental design practice focus on feminist/queer, decolonial and postanthropocentric approaches to design. At metaLAB (at) Berlin, Michelle contributes to the exploration of how experimental forms of inquiry can unsettle established ways of knowing, open up new collective imaginaries, and cultivate possibilities for collaboration across academia, civil society, and the arts.