Karla Roberts

Karla Roberts is a budding Afrofuturist born & raised in Philadelphia PA. Her interest in science fiction & comics began early with introductions to Star Trek and Star Wars as soon as she was old enough to follow a story. Like many Black nerds she longed to see more images that represented her on TV and in cinema. Led by passion, Karla attended Drexel University seeking an Interior Architecture Master’s Degree & was frustrated that the lack of representation was embedded everywhere. After the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, she incorporated these frustrations into her studies, imagining Black life in nurtured & healing spaces. An introduction to speculative design by her professors became the basis for her thesis and the historical re-education of Black past that she never received. Her thesis was spotlighted in Dezeen Magazine & won a Research Award from Drexel University for exploring “architectural and interior spaces in a parallel universe using the narrative form of the graphic novel.”