Penilope Tusaasiirwe is an Assistant Lecturer as well as a Doctoral student, at Kyambogo University, focusing her research on Upcycling Post-consumer Textile waste through Art production for Environmental Sustainability at Higher Education institutions in Uganda.

Her motivation as an assistant lecturer, has always been the desire to find solutions to the scarce materials allocated to her for teaching practical courses considering that students perceive such materials as being very costly. Hence, her rich background in textiles construction and design has propelled her together with her students, to creatively source for sustainable, zero-cost alternative materials through exploring natural resources, as well as upcycling waste materials for art production.

She has taught textiles construction and surface Design at Kyambogo University for over 10 years and throughout this period, she has been able to participate in curricular reviews, teaching, conducting research and supervision of student’s research at both undergraduate, post-graduate and graduate levels.

This has enabled her to engage in vast exploratory processes and projects aimed at propelling indigenous knowledge and technologies in textile designing, teaching and learning. She has realised that adopting sustainability mind-sets in our daily practices as well as our respective trades lies the future of the planent. Hence, she hopes to increase her undertakings of creating awareness about this urgent need through creative textile art projects.