Dr Aline M. Fernandes Barata

I am interested in:

• Everyday community-led actions seeking to improve life and the built environment (with, despite and against the state)
• Participatory and visual methodologies that engage embodied experiences and underrepresented groups
• Critical theories that question taken-for-granted notions and foster more just and sustainable cities

My work has explored the role of everyday practices, activism and self-built approaches, resisting and providing solutions to housing poverty and mobility injustices in Brazilian favelas; the potential of temporary architectural and urban interventions in achieving long-term and permanent changes in Brazil, the US and the UK; and more recently, the role of digital urban observatories for promoting participation and unpacking ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ notions of heritage in the UK, Brazil and South Africa.

Current research activity

PhD supervision:

• 2024 – current: Pegah Aftabi, ‘Co-creating and mapping urban heritage narratives: Developing a community-centred urban heritage toolkit for digital urban observatories’

Recently completed research projects

• 2023-2025: The TOWN Observatory and The Impact Hub project, funded by the UK Government
• 2019-2023: ‘The role of participation in mobility planning in the Global South: Spaces and meanings of participation in Rio de Janeiro and Porto Alegre, Brazil’, PhD funded by an Oxford Brookes University Global Challenges Studentship and a field trip secondment by the Co-creation Project, European Commission
• 2016-2018: ‘From micro to macro: Tactical Urbanism for the transformation of public spaces’ (original manuscript in Portuguese), master’s studentships funded by CNPq, FAPERJ TEC Nota 10 and Erasmus Mundus through the Sustain-T project

• Fernandes Barata, A.,and Jones, T. (2026). Understanding everyday lived experiences of moving around Brazilian favelas: the case of favela Santa Marta and Vila Tronco, Applied Mobilities, pp. 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/23800127.2026.2689250
• Fernandes Barata, A., Harland, R. G., Kim, M., Larimian, T., Natapov, A., Palaiologou, F. and Weightman, J. (2025) ‘Learning from the participatory practices of urban observatories to co-create a new town observatory in Loughborough, UK’, Journal of Urban Affairs, pp.1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2025.2473963
• Banyai-Becker, W., Riley-Powell, A.R., Bennett, J., Fernandes Barata, A., Hafez, N. O., Isiaka, A., B., Nyiti, A., Puskás, N., Vallejo, A., and Youngs, J. (2025) ‘Engaging with knowledge co-production: Critical reflections from global doctoral researchers’, in Johnson, C., Cástan-Broto, V., Kombe, W., Lipietz, B., Ortiz, C. and Osuteye, E. (eds) Co-production of knowledge in action. Emancipatory strategies for Urban Equality. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800088931
• Fernandes Barata, A. (2024) ‘Social participation and mobility justice in Brazil’, Cadernos Metrópole, 26(60), pp.465-487. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2236-9996.2024-6004.e

I joined Loughborough University in 2023 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Urban and Regional Studies in The Impact Hub (2023-2026), an interdisciplinary project funded by the UK Government. In the project, I contributed to the development of a TOWN Observatory for Loughborough and established long-term collaborations with international partners and community groups. 

Before joining Loughborough University, I worked as an Associate Lecturer and Research Associate at Oxford Brookes University. In Brazil, I have experience working as an Architect, Architectural Assistant in a private practice, Planning Assistant at Juiz de Fora City Hall, and as a Researcher and Teaching Assistant at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Since 2017, I have been teaching large and small cohorts at different levels (i.e. foundation, undergraduate, master’s and doctoral studies) in several fields (i.e. Architecture, Urban Planning and Design, Real Estate and Graphic Design) and session formats (i.e. lectures, workshops, design studio tutorials and PhD supervision) across Brazilian and UK universities. My teaching is informed by my interdisciplinary education and experience of working on a variety of national and international research projects.

Professional affiliations

• (2025 – current) Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
• (2016-2018) CAU-BR Registered Architect

Awards

• Shortlisted for Supervisory Team of the Year at Loughborough University PhD Awards (2024)
• Oxford Brookes University Global Challenges PhD Studentship (2019-2022)
• Erasmus Mundus Sustain-T Project Studentship (2017-2018): Master’s mobility in Architecture and Urbanism at the Czech Technical University in Prague
• CNPq and FAPERJ Tec Nota 10 studentships (2016-2017): Master’s in Urbanism at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
• CNPq Science Without Borders Studentship (2013-2014): Sandwich graduation at the Leicester School of Architecture, De Montfort University
• Honourable mention for the architectural project ‘Igrejinha Primary School’ (‘Escola Infantil Igrejinha’) under the theme Sustainable Schools in the Latin American competition at the José Lutzemberger Biennial (2011)
• Federal University of Juiz de Fora Scientific Initiation Studentship (2011-2013)

External activities

• (2016 – current): Researcher in the Laboratory of Temporary Interventions and Tactical Urbanism, Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (LabIT-UFRJ)
• (2023-2025): Early Career Officer at the RGS-IBG Latin American Geographies Research Group and RGS-IBG Participatory Geographies Research Group

Key collaborators

My research and enterprise activities are conducted with a range of academic and stakeholder partners, including:

• Oxford Brookes University
• Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
• Loughborough Library Local Studies Volunteer Group
• Gauteng City-Region Observatory