Charlotte Palmer leads the makerspaces in the Department of Engineering at King’s, drawing on a background in Mechanical and Design Engineering and experience across multiple academic makerspaces. As the founding technical lead, she established the department’s makerspaces and now oversees their strategic direction, day-to-day operations, and ongoing development. The facilities support innovative, project-based learning and create-first pedagogy, providing students with access to a wide range of workshop tools and equipment.

Charlotte is responsible for health and safety, maintenance, training and skills development, inventory management, user processes and policy design, and contributes to the co-design and delivery of undergraduate engineering design modules. Her team enables students to engage in hands-on engineering in a safe, accessible, and well-supported environment, while supporting academics to embed making into teaching and open-ended projects.

A strong advocate for inclusive and experiential learning, Charlotte is committed to creating adaptable, user-led spaces where students from all backgrounds feel confident to experiment, prototype, and learn through doing. She champions failure as a vital part of the design process and continually evolves the spaces in response to educational needs and user feedback.

Alongside her core role, Charlotte provides design and manufacturing consultancy for internal and external partners, supporting exhibitions, installations, outreach, and extracurricular initiatives. Her professional interests include engineering design education, practical skills development, and the role of makerspaces in fostering creativity, confidence, and collaboration.