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Professor Scott Palmer is a distinguished academic at the University of Leeds, serving as Professor of Light and Performance within the School of Performance and Cultural Industries (Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures). With over 30 years of teaching and management experience in Higher Education, he was a founder member of the School in 2001 and has held numerous senior management roles including Interim Head of School, Director of Student Education (2019-2022), Director of Enterprise and Knowledge Transfer, and Programme Manager for BA (Hons) Performance Design for over a decade. In 2017-18, he was appointed to an Excellence and Innovation Fellowship at the Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence & Innovation.
- PhD (Leeds) - Light, Scenography and the Choreography of Space
- Cert. Education (Manchester)
- BA Hons. Drama (Wales)
Professor Palmer is a leading international advocate for scenography as an intellectual discipline. His research focuses on light, darkness and atmosphere in performance, designing for audience experience, and since 2017, the field of XR (Extended Reality). His influential monograph Light: Readings in Theatre Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013) significantly contributed to establishing scenography as a scholarly field, exploring how light has influenced staging practices throughout history. He has co-edited major works including Scenography Expanded (Bloomsbury 2017) and the groundbreaking Contemporary Performance Lighting (2023), the first critical anthology focused specifically on performance lighting.
His recent publications reveal evolving research trends from historical analyses of light in theatre to contemporary explorations of XR, immersive environments, and audience experience. Keywords across his work consistently emphasize scenography, audience experience, light design, and the integration of digital technologies in performance. His sub-field specializations span historical lighting techniques, immersive theatre practices, site-specific performance, 360-degree environments, and the theoretical frameworks connecting technological innovation with theatrical expression.
- Excellence and Innovation Fellowship at the Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence & Innovation (2017-18)
- Research impact highlighted by AHRC as an exemplar case study
- Contributions to BBC Radio 3's Illuminating the Stage (broadcast December 25, 2017)
Professor Palmer has supervised numerous PhD candidates and led collaborative student projects resulting in public performances including Pandora's Box (2009), Dream/Play (2010), Just Before Dawn (2011), Into the Dark (2012), Blood Wedding (2013), The Dreaming (2015), The Waiting Room (2017), and Within This House (2018). His research has been supported by significant grants including the AHRC-funded Projecting Performance (2006-08), UKRI-funded Surround Stories (XR Stories), and AHRC-funded Bridging the Gaps exploring Mixed Reality Performance of Chinese Opera. He plays an active role in international scholarly communities as co-convenor of the IFTR Scenography Working Group (2013-16), inaugural member of the TaPRA Scenography Working Group, and contributor to OISTAT Education and History and Theory Commissions.
Professor Palmer is a member of the PLACE, Practice as Research, and Participation Research Groups at Leeds, and was co-instigator of the Leeds-based Performing Light Network. His SignalSpace web resource, developed with colleague Maria Kapsali, explores digital creativity and mobile phone applications in performance contexts. He regularly presents research outcomes at international conferences including IFTR, TaPRA, ICIDS, and ZipScene, demonstrating his commitment to advancing both theoretical understanding and practical applications of performance design.
