Karen Messer is an applied researcher and Senior Fellow at the Centre for Sensory Studies. Her work applies a spatial and sensory lens to organizational change and interdisciplinary research. Her book How to Work with Space: Spatial Knowledge in Organizations and Research Practice was recently published by Palgrave MacMillian in 2024. Based on her PhD research, How to Work with Space draws on relational concepts of physical space as a way of understanding and framing organizational experience. Throughout the book, spaces are central and entangled in social experience. This cultivates an emplaced, relational, and more-than-human understanding of the emotional, sensory, and atmospheric experiences that happen at work. 

Karen holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Victoria and a Masters degree in Human Systems Intervention from Concordia University. 

Karen continues to explore ideas of relational space in offices and homes while working as a spatial consultant. You can read more about her thoughts and experiences on her website: https://www.afinemesser.com/blog