Alice Rawsthorn is an award-winning design critic and author, whose books include Hello World: Where Design Meets Life (Hamish Hamilton, 2013), Design as an Attitude (JRP Ringier, 2018), and Design Emergency: Building a Better Future, co-written with Paola Antonelli, senior curator of architecture and design at MoMA, New York (Phaidon, 2022). Rawsthorn’s weekly design column for The New York Times was syndicated worldwide for over a decade. In all her work, she champions the potential of design as a social, political, and ecological tool.

Born in Manchester and based in London, UK, Rawsthorn is a founding member of the Writers for Liberty campaign for human rights and the global advisory council of the DemocracyNext action institute. She has been chair of trustees at Chisenhale Gallery, Hepworth Wakefield, and Michael Clark Company, and a trustee of Whitechapel Gallery and Arts Council England. Rawsthorn is a co-founder, with Antonelli, of the Design Emergency podcast and research platform, which investigates design’s role in forging a fairer future.