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Dr Maria Salaru
Lecturer (Teaching)
Dept of Anthropology
Faculty of S&HS
- Joined UCL
- 1st Sep 2019
Research summary
Maria Șalaru’s research is situated at the intersection between anthropology and architecture. Particularly interested in the material transformations of ageing buildings, she has conducted ethnographic research inside a block of flats in Northern Romania, studying how inhabitants are involved in the care and refurbishment of their building, when the state has retreated from those responsibilities. She also filmed and directed The Block, an award-winning observational documentary about the inhabitants of this building, which was screened at film festivals internationally and received the Best Documentary award in 2016 at Ficarq, the Architecture and Film Festival in Spain.
Biography
At University College London, she lectures on material culture and the anthropology of the built environment. At Oxford University, she is the Co-Investigator on the Disobedient Buildings project, led by Dr Inge Daniels and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
She has conducted postdoctoral research at Durham University about people-centred approaches to urban infrastructure, in collaboration with Durham County Council. This Erasmus+ project brought together universities and non-academic partners from the sustainable living and energy sector, based in Slovenia, Czech Republic, the UK and the Netherlands. At Durham, she also briefly did research on energy modelling at the National Centre for Energy Systems Integration (CESI).