Wilson, Sandra

Professor Sandra Wilson has a personal chair in Ecological Metal Design. She is a contemporary jeweller, silversmith, researcher and educator and is passionate about the transformative power of making things. Her highly interdisciplinary work has won awards from the Scottish Arts Council, the Audi Foundation for Innovation, and the British European Designers Group. Her work is also in the collection of HRH Princess Anne.

Her research investigates recovering precious metals such as gold and copper from electronic waste and is working with the Love Chemistry Group at Edinburgh University who have developed a new ligand that specifically targets gold. She has also researched the lesser known silversmithing technique ‘Dutch raising’ and is currently exploring how there may be parallels with this and Japanese raising methods. She is responsible for bringing the European Silversmiths Forum (Hammerclub) to Dundee in May 2019.

She advocates for making practice as research and projects have included Pulse: The Stuff of Life exploring the beauty of 3D protein architecture and thoughtfully integrating traditional hand fabrication and new technologies such as 3D printing. From Pulse, work was included in three exhibitions, namely; Origin: Ur Sprung Schmuck – an international touring exhibition including Inhorgenta the worlds' largest jewellery fair in Munich; Nature Inspired Design – an AHRC/EPSRC national initiative -Design for the 21^stCentury; and Design4science an international touring exhibition and symposium highlighting cutting edge design and science. Co-investigator on Imprints: Public Responses to Identity Management technologies and practices a major £1.9m EPSRC research project. This research was concerned with the way that new wearable technologies could empower the user to express their fluid identities rather than be used for surveillance.