Christoph D. D. Rupprecht
ルプレヒト　クリストフ

I am a geographer working on cities and sustainability theory from the perspectives of food, agriculture, green space, degrowth, solarpunk and multispecies/more-than-human thinking. An Associate Professor at the Department of Environmental Design, Faculty of Collaborative Regional Innovation (as well as the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Regional Resilience, and the Graduate School of Science and Engineering (affiliate)) at Ehime University, I’m also a founding member and Director at the non-profit organization FEAST. The Multispecies Sustainability Lab was founded in 2021 as part of my move to Ehime University from the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature.

You can find me at Ehime University (in Japanese), on Mastodon/Twitter, ResearchGate (including CV), Researchmap, and Google Scholar, or veeery seldomly uploading my hobby nature photography.

地理学者として、都市や持続可能性の理論について食と農、緑地、脱成長、ソーラーパンクやマルチスピーシーズの観点から研究を行っています。愛媛大学社会共創学部環境デザイン学科・准教授のほか、同大学の人文社会科学研究科教員、地域レジリエンス学環専任教員、理工学研究科連携教員（Dマル合）、一般社団法人FEASTの設立理事として活動しています。マルチスピーシーズ・サステナビリティ・ラボラトリーは2021年に総合地球環境学研究所から愛媛大学への移動のきっかけに設立されました。

より詳しくは愛媛大学のHP, Mastodon, ResearchGate, Researchmap, Google Scholar 、そしてめったに更新しない写真撮影HPをご覧ください！

Ehime University seminar / 愛媛大学・ルプレヒトゼミ

Every year, the lab is hosting several undergraduate students of Ehime University’s Department of Environmental Design. Learn about past research topics and how to join the lab.

ラボでは毎年愛媛大学社会共創学部環境デザイン学科から3-4人程度のゼミ生を受け入れます：過去の卒業研究やラボ・ゼミに入ることについて！

Members / メンバー

Nadiya Karibayeva

Nadiya Karibayeva is a Ph.D. student at Ehime University whose research explores play as a way of reimagining relationships between humans and other species. Working across multispecies studies, post-humanist thought, and speculative design, she investigates how playful encounters can foster curiosity, negotiation, and coexistence in shared urban environments.

Her current research develops Zoo Ludens, a framework that explores play as a multispecies practice, and Multispecies Go, a speculative game that invites participants to think with, rather than simply about, other species. Through ethnographic fieldwork and design research, she asks how play can reveal animal agency, challenge human-centered assumptions, and inspire new ways of living together in cities.

Her long-term goal is to develop playful approaches that help researchers, designers, policymakers, and communities imagine more inclusive multispecies futures.

Ming Fei Centen

With a background in environmental science and urban planning & design, I have continuously asked myself, who and what are we designing our cities and futures for? Now, as a PhD researcher at Ehime University, I am bringing that question into new light. By moving beyond ‘anthropocentrism’, I ask how more-than-human perspectives may reshape the way we understand, map and design our cities and futures. 

From stories to conversations to quiet observations: I am drawn to exploring the poetics of space that softly shape our relationship with the world—mapping the unconventional and engaging with both human and more-than-human worlds in future urban designs. 

By blending scientific & creative practices, I hope to contribute to fostering a beautiful world in which many worlds fit and can flourish for a long time. 

Debapriti Sengputa

Debapriti Sengupta is a researcher with a speculative streak, diving into solarpunk fiction and its sunny entanglements with energy systems, environmental justice, and techno-utopian (or dystopian) dreams. Her work asks how stories—especially those sprouting solar panels, communal gardens, and a dash of weather hacking—help us imagine alternative energy futures and climate interventions across diverse geographies. Blending science and technology studies, energy humanities, and postcolonial theory, she explores how fiction can power more equitable, imaginative responses to the climate crisis.

A very proud Bengali, she believes strongly in the power of stories, good food, and principled stubbornness. When not theorizing about speculative infrastructure, she’s usually reading, writing, or being thoroughly distracted by dogs—especially the ones that aren’t hers.

Wang Yi

Wang Yi is a Ph.D. student at Ehime University, majoring in Civil and Environmental Engineering. She previously worked as a landscape designer with a focus on biophilic design and participated in a wide range of urban landscape projects in China, including residential developments, mixed-use commercial complexes, urban wetland parks, and suburban pollinator gardens.

Building on her practical experience and industry insights, she emphasizes the integration of theory and practice. Her current research is dedicated to advancing theoretical approaches and applying urban data analysis to support the development of biodiverse and vibrant urban green spaces — with a particular interest in informal green spaces.
Her research aims to contribute to the enhancement of urban green infrastructure, promote urban sustainability, and improve human well-being.

Swarnava Chaudhuri

Swarnava Chaudhuri works at the intersection of graphic narratives, environmental humanities, and decolonial thought. His research explores how Solarpunk comics imagine ecological futures not simply as worlds of technological possibility, but as ongoing experiments in care, collective life, and multispecies coexistence. Interested in what comics can do that other forms of storytelling cannot, he studies how panels, gutters, bodies, and landscapes make alternative ways of living perceptible—and how visual narratives might challenge the worlds we have learned to take for granted. He is particularly drawn to stories that understand hope not as an escape from crisis, but as the difficult, collective work of sustaining life.

Originally from Bengal, India, Swarnava is equally at home with a graphic novel, a Bengali meal, an overlong playlist, or a football match that demands his undivided attention. He enjoys travelling without following the itinerary too closely, taking photographs that may never see the light of day, and returning to Studio Ghibli films with the unreasonable confidence that this time the ending will hurt less. He remains interested in the things that resist neat conclusions: the stories we inherit, the futures we imagine, and the lives that unfold in the spaces between panels. After all, even a researcher needs somewhere to leave a few unanswered questions.

Wang Yanjiao

Wang Yanjiao is a recent college graduate and research student at Ehime University. During my college years, I participated in various projects at my school and completed numerous research projects on urban landscapes in China, including the renovation of commercial areas and the design and discussion of environmental welfare. I combined environmental design with its practical application. Research topics in landscape design I am interested in are urban street renovation and informal green spaces.