ETHO Online: Setting up a Bio/Nature Lab

Jennifer Bissonnette

Jen Bissonnette is an ecologist, marine scientist and educator whose work focuses on human-nature connections, living systems and systems thinking to foster innovative design solutions to pressing environmental and societal challenges.
Central to her work is engaging techniques of transdisciplinary inquiry to merge natural sciences knowledge, techniques and methods of inquiry with art|design thinking and studio practices. Jen is currently serving as the Interim Director of the Edna W. Lawrence Nature Lab at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she works to support research on science visualisation and communication; projects involving sustainable, biophilic and regenerative design, and corporate partnerships interested in employing biomimicry principles and scientific understanding to develop regenerative design strategies.
She is a former legislative National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration Knauss Fellow, and has been awarded numerous grants for her work, including a National Science Foundation EAGER grant to oversee the design, construction, and curriculum programming of the Nature Lab’s Biodesign Makerspace. She also serves as a Co-Principal Investigator on the 8 institution RI-C-AIM consortium organized around studying climate change and ecosystem impacts in Narragansett Bay, and leads the science team at RISD working with Hyundai Motor Group on a nature-informed Future of Mobility.

Louise Dumon

Louise Dumon works at the university of Ghent, campus Kortrijk at the research group design.nexus, working on different projects to introduce sustainability and more specifically circularity, in the education program of Industrial design engineers. She is currently working on the project “Prototyping circulair”, to install and integrate a “bio-makerspace” in the curriculum of industrial design engineers to trigger circular design competences. Louise graduated as an Industrial design engineer at UGent herself and worked in industry and education before returning to UGent.

Pirjo Kääriäinen

Pirjo Kääriäinen is a material enthusiast and textile specialist, working as an Associate Professor in Design and Materialities at the Aalto University, Finland. She operates between research and practice, and she is involved in several material research projects focusing on bio-based materials. Since 2011 she has been developing interdisciplinary CHEMARTS collaboration between the School of Arts, Design and Architecture (ARTS) and the School of Chemical Engineering (CHEM). CHEMARTS is aiming to inspire Aalto University students and researchers to explore bio-based materials together, and to create new concepts for their sustainable use. Before her career in academia, Pirjo Kääriäinen worked eighteen years in the Scandinavian textile industry, and gained experience also as an entrepreneur and consultant for creative industries.

Emma van der Leest

Emma van der Leest is a biodesigner and researcher is graduated in 2015 with a bachelor’s degree (honours) from the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. Form Follows Organism: The Biological Computer is the title of her research and book on biodesign and the shifting role of a designer working collaboratively with scientists. Throughout the years Emma has developed a number of different working materials. She is also the founder of BlueCity Lab, an experimental and prototyping laboratory in the former Tropicana water park in Rotterdam. Her goal is to lower the threshold for anyone interested in working with micro-organisms and waste streams in the development of new materials.

Aldje van Meer

Aldje van Meer is a senior lecturer at the Willem de Kooning Academy, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences. In her position, she teaches, researches and explores technical innovations relevant to creative and artistic professions. She advises, inspires and implements the use of technology within the curricula of the Willem de Kooning Academy. Within the stations she is coordinating professional development and supervising research (through making). Aldje has researched and published on the role ICT and media technology plays within current undergraduate art education and organises network meetings, lectures and events during which relevant developments in the field of art & technology are addressed.