Colin Sterling is an AHRC Research Fellow at UCL Institute of Archaeology. His research focuses on critical-creative approaches to heritage, memory and museums. He is interested in how artists, designers, architects, writers and other creative practitioners engage with museums and heritage as spaces of critical enquiry. Colin is currently Principal Investigator on the New Trajectories in Curatorial Experience Design project (Feb 2019 – Jan 2021), which asks how emerging approaches to immersive and experiential design might contribute to critical heritage thinking and practice. As part of this work he also leads on Reimagining Museums for Climate Action – an international design competition and exhibition that seeks to inspire radical change in museums to address the climate crisis.

Colin was previously a Post-Doctoral Research Associate on the AHRC Heritage Priority Area project (Oct 2017 – Dec 2019), and a Project Curator at the Royal Institute of British Architects. He has worked as a heritage consultant internationally, specialising in curatorial planning and interpretation. He teaches on the MA in Cultural Heritage Studies at UCL, where he co-coordinates the Cultural Memory course. 

Colin is the author of Heritage, Photography, and the Affective Past (Routledge, 2020) and the co-editor of Deterritorializing the Future: Heritage in, of and after the Anthropocene (Open Humanities Press, 2020). He is co-editor of the journal Museums & Social Issues (Oct 2020 – ).

Colin is a member of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies (ACHS) and the Memory Studies Association. He served on the organising committee for the ACHS 2020 conference, and is part of the UCL Anthropocene group.