Dr Bruna Montuori is an urban researcher and multidisciplinary designer from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

She is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Geography at King's College London in the project Feminist Activism Among Youth, held in partnership with the Women of the World Foundation and Redes da Maré in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The project focuses on the role of youth activism to prevent gender-based violence, and how visual and embodied methodologies can support collective action and advocacy.

She is also a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Bartlett Development Planning Unit, working in the project ‘Listen, Learn and Leap: Co-producing Equitable and Sustainable Nature-based Solutions for climate resilience in East African Cities’, which co-investigates and co-develops Nature Based Solutions with the organisations KDI in Nairobi, Kenya, and CCI and Ardhi University in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.

Bruna holds a PhD from the School of Architecture, Royal College of Art (SoA/RCA), with her thesis entitled: Practices of Narration: a plural (re)imagination of Maré. In the thesis, she investigated the intersection between space, counter-narratives, and insurgent citizenship through the work and collective action of Redes da Maré, an organisation based in Maré, a group of 16 favelas on the north side of Rio de Janeiro.

Since 2019, she has been working as a lead visual communicator for the same organisation, co-producing policy advocacy projects and campaigns involving the right to public security, access to justice, urban and environmental rights, art, culture, memory and identity recognition, and education. Bruna has worked as a Lecturer and Associate Lecturer for the London College of Communication and Central Saint Martins at the University of the Arts London, and has been guest lecturer and critic across universities in the UK and Brazil. She has been a Postgraduate Teaching Assistant for the MSc. Environmental Sustainable Development at The Bartlett DPU.

Bruna has been a member of the Participatory Geographies Research Group (PYGYRG) taking different roles such as Portgraduate Representative, Conference Officer and currently as EDI officer. She holds a Masters degree in Architecture from Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Universidade de São Paulo (FAU-USP), and worked as Curator Assistant for the 11th São Paulo Architecture Biennial in 2017. With an undergraduate degree in product design and visual communication, Bruna has been leading a range of design projects for a number of organisations in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Research

• Gender justice
• Urban planning
• Participatory research
• Informality
• Decolonial and feminist studies

Bruna's research explores the intersections of urban narratives, insurgent citizenship, and spatial justice, with a focus on how communities produce and circulate knowledge to contest inequalities and reimagine urban futures. She is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at UCL’s Bartlett Development Planning Unit, working on Listen, Learn and Leap: co-producing equitable nature-based solutions in East African cities, and a Postdoctoral Research Associate at King’s College London, contributing to Feminist Activist Youth in Brazil in partnership with the Women of the World Festival.

Building on her PhD at the Royal College of Art, which examined the narrative practices of Redes da Maré in Rio de Janeiro, Bruna's work advances an agenda for plural imagination in design and planning, grounded in participatory geographies, decoloniality, gender studies, and social justice.