MEET THE SPEAKERS
The People Behind the Conversation
PULSE 2026 brings together researchers, educators, architects, designers and school thinkers whose work is challenging how we understand the relationship between people, place and learning.
Each speaker brings a different lens. Together, they create a conversation that goes beyond how schools look- to ask how learning environments can better support the children, communities and cultures they serve.
At PULSE 2026 | Where Culture Meets Learning, we are bringing together people who are asking exactly these kinds of questions.
Dr. Reiko Shimokura
Associate Professor | Meijo University, Japan
For more than 25 years, Dr. Shimokura has researched how learning environments influence children’s development, learning and wellbeing.
Her work began with open-plan elementary schools and has expanded into high schools, special-needs education, inclusive learning and active learning environments.
Her research has taken her across Japan, the UK, Sweden, Norway, Australia and the United States, giving her a broad perspective on how different environments can support different ways of learning.
Dr. Shimokura began her research with open-plan elementary schools, later expanding her work to high schools, special-needs education, inclusive learning and active learning environments.
Her research spans Japan, the UK, Sweden, Norway, Australia and the United States, exploring how different environments can support different ways of learning.
A key insight from her work is that inclusive education and active learning can coexist within thoughtfully designed spaces.
Today, she continues her research and teaching at Meijo University, serves as Chair of the Educational Facilities Subcommittee of the Architectural Institute of Japan, and advises national and local governments on school-design initiatives.
Why Dr. Shimokura’s Work Matters
Her work invites a simple but important question:
Are we designing spaces for learning—or around the learner?
For educators, it connects space with pedagogy.
For architects and designers, it brings the learner’s experience into focus.
For school leaders, it links design with inclusion, participation and wellbeing.
At its core, her work reminds us that where learning happens can shape how learning happens.
What Her Perspective Brings to PULSE 2026
PULSE 2026 is built around the idea that the future of learning cannot be shaped within professional silos.
Dr. Shimokura’s work brings research, pedagogy, architecture and human experience into the same conversation.
At PULSE, her perspective contributes to bigger questions:
- How can spaces respond to different learners?
- How can design support inclusion and active learning?
- How does the environment influence behaviour and belonging?
- What happens when we begin designing from the learner outward?
These are not simply architectural questions.
They are questions about the kind of learning experience we want children to have.
One Question to Take Away
Can we design learning environments that respond not only to how children learn, but to who they are?
Perhaps this is where the conversation needs to begin.
Not with the building.
Not with the furniture.
But with the learner.
One Conversation. Many Lenses.
Dr. Shimokura is one voice within a growing PULSE community.
Across the room, different perspectives will meet around questions that have no single-profession answer:
How does culture shape learning?
How does space influence behaviour and belonging?
Can design make inclusion visible?
What happens when we design from the learner outward?
The most interesting part may not be knowing the answers.
It may be discovering which questions you have never asked.
See what happens when decades of research enter a room built for conversation?
Her research. Your questions. One room.
Be Part of the Conversation
Dr. Shimokura is one of the voices contributing to the wider PULSE 2026 conversation-bringing together educators, school leaders, architects, designers and researchers from India and around the world.
Because sometimes the most valuable thing you take away from a gathering isn’t an answer.
It is a question you cannot stop thinking about.
PULSE 2026 | Where Culture Meets Learning
5–7 October 2026 | Sheraton Grand Palace, Indore
Come with your questions. Leave seeing learning spaces differently.