Dr Katie McQuaid

Profile

Katie joined the School of Geography in 2014. She is an anthropologist with expertise on gender, climate change and disasters, ageing, intersectionality, and forced migration in informal urban settings. Her research adopts a feminist and intersectional approach that combines social sciences and applied arts methodologies as tools for research, knowledge exchange and promoting climate and disaster justice in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Her recent books include Climate Justice in Action: Activism and Adaptation in Eastern Africa (2026), Community-based Arts, Research and Activism in Uganda: We are Walukuba (2025) and Intersectional Climate Justice in Eastern Africa (2025).

Katie was awarded a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship in 2019 to lead the GENERATE Project on: 'Gender, Generation and Climate Change: Creative Approaches to Building Inclusive and Climate Resilient Cities in Uganda and Indonesia’. GENERATE is creatively and collaboratively delivering new evidence and arts-led interventions to better understand and challenge gender and social inequalities and promote intersectional climate and disaster justice, in collaboration with communities, activists, artists, civil society and governments. Her team works at the intersection of social science research and local and applied arts to support and mobilise the participation and leadership of marginalised communities in tackling climate and disaster injustice, including women, youth and older people, informal workers, LGBTQIA+ people, refugees and asylum-seekers, people with diffability, and Indigenous communities. Current interventions include Recipes for Disaster Justice in West Nusa Tenggara and Coastal Women Leading Climate Justice in Central Java, Indonesia.

Katie’s recent collaborations also include:

• Creative Ageing Lab (2026): A colalboration between the University of Edinburh and University of Leeds, this project launched with a creative two-day workshop at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, bringing together an interdisciplinary group of researchers, artists, and older adults to explore what it means to age today, and identify solutions that promote inclusive, equitable and healthy ageing. Through activities including ageing simulation suits, creative scenario-building, collaborative discussions, and artistic exercises, participants reflected on the lived experience of ageing to imagine more inclusive futures. This ongoing project is now co-creating a graphic novel that brings together diverse perspectives on ageing, combining interdisciplinary dialogue, storytelling, and creative expression.

• SYNERGIA: Sustainable Systems for Environmental and Health Resilience using Global Integrated Analytics (2026-): A collaboration between University of the Witwatersrand and University of Leeds, SYNERGIA proposes a paradigm shift from top-down, siloed environmental health monitoring to community-led, interdisciplinary, and justice-focused environmental action. Co-designing digital dashboards and mobile apps in South Africa and the UK, SYNERGIA is delivering air pollution data to local communities in local languages, allowing real-time awareness and community-driven decision-making. The project combines sensor deployment, AI-powered data analysis, participatory workshops, and collaborative policy engagement. SYNERGIA aims to lay the foundation for a replicable model of environmental justice in the face of accelerating urbanisation and global ecological crises by weaving together climate resilience, AI innovation, and participatory methods.

• Fisherwomen Leading Digital Climate Stories (2025-2026): A collaboration between Universitas Pattimura, Coral Reef Alliance, Universitas Pelita Bangsa, The Coral Triangle Center and University of Leeds, this project delivered a participatory and creative training programme to support fisherwomen and coastal women in developing digital climate storytelling. The training toolkit and think-kit under development focus on strengthening storytelling skills, building confidence and collective solidarity, and enhancing digital and ethical capacities.

• Kembali Bermimpi: Strengthening Riverside Resilience in Solo (2025-26): A creative collaboration between Universitas Sebelas Maret and University of Leeds, Kembali Bermimpi responds to the increasing vulnerability of riverside communities along the Bengawan Solo River in Central Java to flooding and climate-related hazards. Through a participatory design and transdisciplinary research approach, the project brought together community members, design students, and researchers as collaborators to collectively explore new ways to reconnect communities with the river by reactivating cultural memory, creativity, and citizen-led knowledge, and re-imagining the river as a shared ecological and cultural space.

• RES-WELL: Developing a toolkit for Researcher Wellbeing to support principal investigators and their funders on ethically and emotionally challenging research topics (2024-25): A collaboration between University College London, University of Exeter and University of Leeds, RES-WELL drew on multi-methods research, participatory workshops and interdisciplinary perspectives to co-develop a toolkit that provides evidence and practical strategies for researchers, project leads, research institutions and funders to support and prioritise researcher wellbeing.

• Kayuh Baimbai: Co-Designing a Diffability-Inclusive Disaster Preparedness Toolkit in South Kalimantan, Indonesia (2023 – 2025): Kayuh Baimbai is a pioneering collaborative initiative that is strengthening disaster preparedness and promoting the leadership and inclusion of people with diffabilities in climate action in the city of Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, Indonesia. Co-led by the University of Leeds, Indonesia Disabled People’s Association (PPDI) and Indonesia Disabled Women’s Association (HWDI), this project supported people with diverse diffabilities to co-design a diffability-inclusive toolkit and disaster risk reduction actions.

• See Chage: Documenting Climate Change at the Margins: Photography Masterclass (2022-23): Co-led with the FOTEA Foundation and Uganda Press Photo Award, this Masterclass brought together emerging photographers and photojournalists in East Africa with leading photographers and climate experts to explore and visualise the impacts of the urban climate crisis on marginalised urban communities, inviting stakeholders to engage with visual stories to bring about change. The book is available online.

Katie studied Social Anthropology (MA Hons) at the University of Edinburgh, before completing an MA in the Anthropology of Conflict, Violence and Conciliation (2008) and MSc in Cross-Cultural and Comparative Research Methods (2010) at the University of Sussex. Funded by the ESRC, Katie conducted two years’ ethnographic fieldwork in Uganda (2011-2012) for her PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Sussex (2014). Her thesis, entitled ‘Another War: Stories of Violence, Humanitarianism and Human Rights amongst Congolese Refugees in Uganda’ explores how urban refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo engage with humanitarian systems, including a particular focus on the experiences of displaced human rights defenders and LGBTQIA+ refugees and asylum-seekers.

Responsibilities

• UKRI Future Leaders Fellow

Research interests

Katie currently leads on her UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship grant: ‘Gender, Generation and Climate Change (GENERATE): Creative Approaches to Building Inclusive and Climate Resilient Cities in Uganda and Indonesia’.

Katie works on the Kayuh Baimbai project: Co-Designing a Diffability-Inclusive Disaster Preparedness Toolkit in South Kalimantan, Indonesia

Primary investigator (PI)

• Gender, Generation and Climate Change (GENERATE): Creative Approaches to Building Inclusive and Climate-Resilient Cities in Uganda and Indonesia

Professional memberships

• EASA
• IAUES

Research groups and institutes

• Social Justice, Cities, Citizenship

Current postgraduate researchers

• Andi Misbahul Pratiwi
• Prahelika Deka