Emma Love
Emma Love is a Chartered Builder (MCIOB), Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Architecture and Built Environment at Birmingham City University. Her work explores how people experience, interpret and remember the built environment through professional practice, higher education, research and public engagement.
Before joining Birmingham City University, Emma worked in building surveying, technical surveying and interior design. This professional background continues to inform her teaching, ensuring students develop technical knowledge alongside professional judgement and practical understanding. She has previously served as Course Leader for the BSc (Hons) Building Surveying programme and Course Director for the MSc Building Surveying and Facilities Management programme. During her time as Course Leader, National Student Survey satisfaction for Building Surveying increased from 53% to 83% within two years.
Emma's research focuses on the relationship between people, place and the built environment, with particular interests in graffiti, urban culture, heritage, collective memory, and place identity. Her doctoral research examines graffiti as a form of cultural expression and how everyday interventions within public space influence the ways places are understood, experienced, and remembered.
Alongside academic publications and conference presentations, Emma communicates research through exhibitions, documentary photography, newspapers, specialist magazines, television and radio. She welcomes opportunities for research collaboration, consultancy, knowledge exchange and public engagement across the built environment, heritage and cultural sectors.