Rate My Professor Charity Edwards

Charity Edwards is a Senior Lecturer and urban researcher in the Department of Architecture within Monash University’s Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture. She is a registered architect with more than 20 years of experience in projects ranging from domestic renovations and large civic buildings to international urban design and planning across Melbourne, regional Victoria, Brisbane, and Darwin. Edwards holds a Master of Architecture (Distinction) and a Bachelor of Architecture from RMIT University (both awarded 2008), and a Master of Environment (Distinction) from the University of Melbourne (2016). Currently pursuing a PhD focused on 'Antarctic Geo-Imaginaries,' her research investigates the destructive, uneven, and multispecies impacts of planetary urbanisation, particularly in remote and off-world environments such as the world ocean and Southern Ocean. Her work highlights more-than-human perspectives in urban theory, geography, climate change, architecture, and the role of autonomous underwater technologies conflicting with romantic views of Antarctica as pristine wilderness.

At Monash, Edwards teaches interdisciplinary courses in design studio, theory, and urban processes across the Architecture and Interior Architecture programs. She received the Faculty’s Early Career Teaching Award in 2016 for pioneering cross-cultural learning and teaching support initiatives. Edwards co-founded The Afterlives of Cities research collective, integrating architecture, astrophysics, digital fabrication, speculative fiction, and art installation, and is involved with Monash Urban Lab. Notable projects include the collaborative 'Future Fossil' public sculpture unveiled at the 2025 Lorne Sculpture Biennale and the Warracknabeal Creative Circuit makerspace. She served as an Early Career Reviewer for the 2019 United Nations IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate and contributed to the Women.Wikipedia.Design campaign, shortlisted for the 2019 Beazley Designs of the Year (Digital Category). Edwards has curated Victorian Architecture Awards exhibitions (2005, 2006), contributed to publications like Architect Victoria, Parlour, and IDEA Journal, and delivered invited public lectures on ocean urbanisation at geography, international law conferences, and cultural institutions. Key publications encompass 'Tomorrow’s More-Than-Human Miners of the Deep' (2024, University of Pittsburgh Press), 'from the horror of us and our surroundings': architectures of unbuilding in le dodici città ideali (2024, IDEA Journal), 'The Ocean In (Planetary) Excess?' (2019, Dialogues in Human Geography), and 'New Orbital Urbanization' with Brendan Gleeson for the International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography.