Ulrik Ekman

Ulrik Ekman serves as Associate Professor of design and architecture at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen. His work integrates environmental humanities with urban design and digital culture to address planetary challenges in the Anthropocene through innovative sustainability and resilience frameworks.

Education Background:

• Ph.D. in Literature, Duke University, USA (2000)

Research Focus: Ekman pioneers research in Green and Blue Humanities, examining water relations, coastal resilience, and adaptive transition theories for sustainable urban infrastructures. His scholarship explores intersections of eco-art and new media through critical design aesthetics, posthumanism, and materiality studies, challenging nature-culture binaries while addressing consumer societies' ecological impacts.

Publication Trajectory: Recent works (2024-2025) center on the Environmental Humanities Glossary project, developing key terms for sustainability discourse. Earlier publications (2012-2018) established foundational work in smart cities and ubiquitous computing, reflecting an evolution from digital culture studies to urgent environmental concerns across 71 research outputs.

Academic Leadership: As co-leader of the Art & Earth research cluster (2021-2023), Ekman fosters interdisciplinary environmental humanities collaboration. He mentors students through courses on resilience, eco-art, and smart cities while serving on EU Horizon 2020 and Nordic research council review panels, translating theoretical work into practical urban planning applications.