Martina Merlo is an interdisciplinary scholar and practitioner of architecture, urbanism, visual studies, multimedia art and technology, music and sound, pursuing a PhD at Tyler School of Art and Architecture. With particular focus in postmodern club and nightlife suncultures at the second half of the 20th century, Merlo’s research explores antiauthoritarianism, utopia, the carnivalesque, and the relationships between audio and visual time-based media, technology, and the built environment through the frameworks of multisensory aesthetics and phenomenology. In interweaving such diverse and non-canonical disciplinary facets, Merlo utilizes contemporary revisionist methodologies including urban sociology, political theory, philosophy, music technology including acoustics and psychoacoustics, neuro and cognitive sciences, and cinema/media studies.

After receiving a BA (Magna cum Laude) in Architecture and Visual Studies with a minor in Landscape Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 2015, Merlo earned an MSc in Architecture at Politecnico di Milano in 2017 (110 e Lode), with a dual MSc from Politecnico di Torino awarded through the multidisciplinary Alta Scuola Politecnica honors programme. After nearly 6 years as a practicing architect in several of Philadelphia’s prominent studios, Merlo now works in Temple University’s Charles Library as a Resource Sharing practitioner, facilitating the advancing accessibility of print and digital collections across multiple academic libraries and other institutions. In addition to Merlo’s contributions to conferences—including most recently the Leeds International Medieval Congress 2026—charette workshops, design competitions, and public/digital humanities projects, Merlo’s architectural work has been published in Dr. Marta Averna’s Come belle addormentate: Progetti e ricerche per il riuso delle colonie di Savignone, with other writing and multimedia projects featured in Artblog among other print, digital, and independent publications. Further publications are forthcoming in the Fall of 2026 and Spring of 2027.