Dr Xristina Penna is a performance designer, researcher, and educator. Programme Leader for Production Arts: Props, Painting, and Set at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, her research explores how performance design and practice can be informed by neuroscience theories of human consciousness and cognition to facilitate collaborative thinking through audiences, space and materials. Her practice explores material experimentation, deliberately inefficient aesthetics, audience interaction, and collaborative making through performance installations she describes as ‘contraptions’. She is currently Co‑Convener of the Scenography Working Group for the Theatre and Performance Research Association (TaPRA) and Creative Lead for the Making, Unmaking, Remaking Workshops and Talks Programme for the Society of British Theatre Designers’ UK National Exhibition, Design | Stage.