Alongside holding a first-class degree in Computer Science, I have spent over 17 years in TV & Film. From starting as a Runner to retraining as a Software Engineer and becoming AI & Innovation Executive at Plimsoll Productions, I have always held an equal love for both technology and the creative. I hope to explore and uncover the responsibility we hold when AI lands in our creative spaces.

Why are you excited to start the ADAPT-AI programme?

I am honoured to be a member of the inaugural ADAPT-AI cohort. Focusing on audiences, performers, creative technologies and AI, the Award’s support is enabling me to conduct my research thoroughly, while having access to consultation from the greatest minds in the field. In particular, ADAPT-AI’s focus on Audience Interfaces, Intersection and Integration speak to exactly the questions I want to answer. My hope is to contribute ethical practices to the use of AI in live spaces.

Pierre Engelhard is a designer, media practitioner and educator working across immersive media, spatial experience, and audiovisual installation. His practice explores how digital technologies can reshape our perception of space, presence, and collective experience through interactive installations, audiovisual performances, and spatial environments for cultural and performance contexts. He holds a Master’s in Digital Direction from the Royal College of Art and teaches across UK arts and design institutions. As an ADAPT-AI doctoral researcher, he investigates new ways of thinking about the screen, exploring hybrid realities, adaptive systems and spatial dramaturgy to develop more embodied, shared and culturally meaningful experiences.

Why are you excited to start the ADAPT-AI programme?

I’m excited to start the ADAPT-AI programme because it gives me the time and space to really explore questions that have been developing through my creative practice. I’m particularly interested in questioning what we understand a screen to be, and what happens when it moves beyond a personal device and becomes something spatial, physical and shared. I’m looking forward to experimenting, making things, testing ideas with people and learning from others working across different disciplines. Most importantly, I’m excited to see where the research takes me and what I might discover through the process.

Ana Grajdeanu is an AHRC ADAPT-AI Doctoral Award recipient at King’s College London researching digital sovereignty and data infrastructure for cultural institutions in partnership with the National Gallery and Serpentine Galleries. Her interdisciplinary academic background combines creative technology (VR/AR/AI) with empirical policy analysis on platform governance and digital rights. Continuously driven by a motivation to create technology that helps the public, Ana is committed to building ethical digital environments for future generations.

Why are you excited to start the ADAPT-AI programme?

I’m excited to join ADAPT-AI because of its unique position at the intersection of creative technology, AI, and the digital humanities. Having the dedicated environment to learn alongside brilliant staff and cohorts across King’s, Guildhall, and LSBU is an incredible opportunity. I can’t wait to collaborate with such a vibrant community and see what we discover together!I’m excited to delve into creative and technological development, with real world impact.

Leah Kurta is a researcher, equitable design practitioner and co-founder of Ida XR Studio, with a background in psychology and audience research. Her work applies feminist, community-centred approaches to technology design, informed by 20 years working with communities often excluded from technology careers. Her published research spans user experience for social impact, immersive audiences, accessibility and inequality. With ADAPT-AI, Leah is focussed on the connections between who gets funded, how creative work is designed, and how this impacts audience diversity. Her hypothesis proposes that audience diversification begins upstream, within industry practices that shape who leads and designs cultural work.

Why are you excited to start the ADAPT-AI programme?

I’m excited to join the ADAPT-AI cohort because it’s a chance to collectively question what kind of creative industry we want to build. My work to date has explored how inequity exists and persists in creative and technical R&D, from the funding design to the innovation approaches. This PhD enables me to explore how participatory design and community building can create a more inclusive industry and, in turn, support diverse access for audiences. It’s rare to be supported to contribute evidence, practice-based inquiry and critical dialogue towards a more socially impactful sector, and I’m grateful for the opportunity.

Lizzy Lambie is a creative industries leader, social entrepreneur and practitioner-researcher working across the UK and Ghana. She is Founder of RANT Academy, Programme Director of RANT–TVET Ghana and Chair of the legacy body of Croydon Creative Enterprise Zone. Her work focuses on widening access to creative education, enterprise and employment for under-represented communities, increasingly exploring how AI and digital technologies can support more inclusive participation. Her doctoral research builds on over twenty years of creative industries and community practice, examining how AI-enabled creative learning can move beyond providing access to create meaningful participation, progression and opportunity.

Why are you excited to start the ADAPT-AI programme?

I am excited to start ADAPT-AI because it gives me the opportunity to bring together my professional practice, academic interests and experience of working with under-represented communities. I am particularly looking forward to challenging my own assumptions through research, learning from the wider ADAPT-AI cohort and developing my knowledge of audience participation, responsible AI and inclusive design. I also value the opportunity to compare experiences in the UK and Ghana. Most importantly, I want to develop research that is academically rigorous but remains connected to real people, real creative environments and the inequalities I still encounter through my work.

Sifiso Mabena is a Zimbabwean multidisciplinary theatre maker working across acting, singing, puppetry, playwriting, education, and devising. Her work often explores displacement, diasporic communities, history, identity, and femininity. Sifiso’s devised work, including ‘[sunflower]’ and ‘my body is geography’, combines puppetry, movement, and storytelling, and has been supported by NYSCA and the Jim Henson Foundation, with residencies at Dixon Place NYC and New Victory Theatre Labworks. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and is an ADAPT-AI Doctoral Focal Award scholar at Guildhall, where she is developing ‘Documented’, an interactive hybrid digital-live puppetry performance exploring immigration through AI and embodied digital puppetry.

Why are you excited to start the ADAPT-AI programme?

I’m excited to be part of ADAPT-AI because it offers a space to be on the frontlines of one of the most important conversations facing the creative industries: how we use AI ethically, thoughtfully, and inclusively. My practice sits at the intersection of performance, puppetry, technology and collaboration, and I’m interested not simply in what AI can do, but in how it changes authorship, agency, embodiment and creative labour. ADAPT-AI’s combination of technical experimentation and critical thinking feels uniquely suited to this moment. I’m excited to learn, experiment, fail, and contribute to building more responsible futures for AI in the arts.

Siobhan McDonnell (Shiv) is a producer and Creative Director in the film and XR industries, with experience spanning immersive games, interactive storytelling, factual series and documentaries. With an academic background in Anthropology and Immersive Storytelling, she’s curious about how technology can help us better understand humour, social interactions and audience engagement. Having produced internationally recognised immersive films and games, she’s now building on this experience through ADAPT-AI, combining creative practice, interdisciplinary research and inclusive methodologies to explore new forms of audience interaction and bring innovative, ethically designed experiences to life.

Why are you excited to start the ADAPT-AI programme?

I’m excited to start ADAPT-AI and really get stuck into the research and technical development behind my proposal. I’m particularly looking forward to exchanging ideas and knowledge across disciplines at a world-leading institution like King’s.

London-born artist Danielle Royer explores identity through toys, digital avatars, game engines, and AI. Currently on the ADAPT-AI programme at King’s College London, her cross-disciplinary practice spans 3D animation, interactive media, and sound. She has created and facilitated projects for major cultural institutions including Tate Modern, Tate Digital, UAL, and the National Maritime Museum. Supported by artist residencies with Meta (Women in Immersive Tech), Elegoo, and Arts Council England, Royer recently received the Best in Realtime Analytics award for her AI-assisted work with Toyota.

Why are you excited to start the ADAPT-AI programme?

I am delighted to join the inaugural cohort of ADAPT-AI, a programme that deeply aligns with my research into AI in the public realm, digital identity, and accessibility within third spaces. I look forward to collaborating with peers across the three partner universities, advancing research on creative public engagement, and investigating how forward-focused data can shape more inclusive, collective spaces for all.

Alice Scope is a media art curator and doctoral researcher in Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London, working with Serpentine Arts Technologies through an AHRC ADAPT-AI Collaborative Doctoral Award. Her research positions art institutions as sites of AI R&D, questioning the commercial technology sector’s definitions of value and innovation. Her practice explores how technology transforms culture and knowledge. She has developed exhibitions and programmes with Serpentine, LACMA, Frieze, Art Basel, MUTEK, Gray Area, and the Berggruen Institute. She advises museums, foundations, and technology companies, and has been a guest critic at UCLA, SCI-Arc, USC, and CalArts.

Why are you excited to start the ADAPT-AI programme?

I’m excited about ADAPT-AI because it treats AI not simply as a technology to be adopted, but as something culture can actively interrogate and shape. I want to use the programme to investigate a question central to my practice: what forms of knowledge and innovation can art institutions produce that commercial AI R&D cannot? Working between King’s, Serpentine, and the wider ADAPT-AI cohort gives me a rare opportunity to test this question through live institutional practice and develop new ways of understanding the role cultural organisations can play in shaping AI’s development.

Tom Spice is an immersive technologist, focussing on inclusive design and accessible toolkits for live events and cultural spaces.

Why are you excited to start the ADAPT-AI programme?

I’m excited to delve into creative and technological development, with real world impact.