Design Scientist
Innovating Through Design Science
A leading design scientist with expansive expertise in ecomimesis, biomimetics, and biodesign for enhancing resilience at the apex of abiotic, biotic, and human systems, Dr. Melissa Sterry elucidates the pivotal role of sustainable innovation in aligning human infrastructure with the dynamics of the natural world.
A multi-award-winning authority in the field with a PhD in ecological systems thinking, she is a Chartered Scientist with the Science Council, a Fellow of both the Design Research Society and the Institute of Science and Technology, and a member of the Design Council Expert Network and the National Coalition of Independent Scholars.
Her groundbreaking research is principally concerned with redesigning material, information, and production systems to work in synchronisation and symbiosis with complex ecological processes, and on cultivating robust sustainable, highly resilient trajectories for the built environment.
Pioneer in Circular Design, Systems Thinking, and Resilience
Sterry’s earliest interrogations in the field date back to the early 1990s - when she conceived of the seminal concept of creating apparel collections made of biomaterials that could safely decompose in the environment at the end of use - an approach today known as cradle-to-cradle design. Today, circular design is a widely recognised approach, but her foresight in this field underscores her visionary thinking and ability to anticipate trends decades out.
Initiated at the School of Built Environment at University of Salford (SOBE) in 2010 and completed at the Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research Group (AVATAR) at the University of Greenwich in 2018, her PhD presented an unprecedented study in designing for resilience to wildfires through ecological systems thinking and mimicry of plant species and ecosystems that evolved to live with wildfire.
An extensive first of its kind transdisciplinary programme that she both designed and funded, the work involved research and analysis of multiple fields and wide-ranging data across the sciences, technology, engineering, design, humanities, and arts. Sterry has since translated the work into multiple publishing formats and languages, some hosted on a purpose-built web platform, together with outputs from her post-PhD R&D programme.
A seasoned innovator and entrepreneur, Sterry pursues her research as an independent scientist, which gives her the autonomy to experiment with emerging approaches to research funding, publishing, and commercial development, and to challenge outdated, inequitable, and inefficient norms. Her independence as a researcher means she can select affiliates, associates, and partners as best befits a research and development brief, as opposed to defaulting to protocols that were designed for an earlier age.
From Interdisciplinary to Transdisciplinary
A graduate of the inaugural intake of University of Salford’s Design Practice BA, which pioneered interdisciplinary studies across the fields of fashion, graphics, and spatial design, having completed several years of training across both traditional and emerging creative disciplines, including the then ‘new’ media, Sterry launched her first sustainable design-led business on graduation in 1996.
Throughout her twenties and early thirties, she undertook roles as varied as Head of Business Development within a full-service design practice, executive headhunter for leading digital agencies, and freelance practitioner in fashion and spatial design. She also served on the boards of several influential world-first
digital start-ups, where she led or co-led creative decision-making, research, development, and strategy. In parallel, she accrued substantial hands-on experience across intellectual property law, finance and investment, business administration, talent acquisition, team leadership, office and project management, marketing and communications, press and media engagement, and client and industry relations.
Scaling Sustainability across Sectors
In her mid-thirties, having long engaged with complex questions of sustainable innovation, and
founded the multi award-winning sustainability think tank, collaborative laboratory, and strategic consultancy Societás, Dr. Sterry turned her focus towards the built environment.
In 2008, she co-founded the award-winning interdisciplinary innovation programme New Frontiers, designed to foster and inspire advances in sustainable design. The initiative convened seminars and facilitated wide-ranging discourse through digital media, including newsletters, e-publications, and early social-media platforms. Supported by twenty knowledge-sharing partners, among them the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, the Centre for Construction Innovation, Chemicals Northwest, and the universities of Manchester, Loughborough, and Salford, the programme was additionally guided by a thirty-member advisory panel comprising leading figures in sustainable science, engineering, and design for the built environment.
She completed a Postgraduate Certificate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship with commendation in 2009, deepening her expertise in intellectual property law, start-up and SME finance and accounting, and business administration, as well as branding, marketing, and communications.
During this period, she initiated a transdisciplinary inquiry into the potential for enhancing urban resilience to meteorological and geological hazards through the mimicry of the biochemistries, behaviours, and systems of flora and fauna. She also delivered her first keynote lectures to industry, academia, and the wider research and practice community on circular design, ecological and systems thinking, biomimicry, and nature-inspired, informed, and enabled innovation - areas that are now commonly explored within the evolving field of regenerative design.
Bio-inspired Cities of the Future
In 2010 Dr. Sterry founded award-winning Bionic City®, which the world’s first biofuturism boutique consultancy. The seminal initiative to explore the question of “how would nature design a city?”, it explored the potential of biomimetics, bioengineering, biotechnology, biodesign, and biological systems in architecture, urban planning, and utilities in the now, near, and far future.
Having built a global network of affiliates, partners, and collaborators, the initiative has had widespread impact through activities including field and lab research, speculative design and fiction, workshops, lectures, advisories, wide-ranging publications, Launched in 2013, its magazine has a readership of over 68,000 and content shares of over 3,000,000.
Her bio-inspired work, spanning both academic research and commercial applications, integrates cutting-edge science, design, and engineering to address pressing global challenges such as climate change, urban resilience, and natural hazard mitigation.
Design for Living with WildFire
On completion of her PhD in 2018, Dr. Sterry launched the research and publishing platform Panarchic Codex®, which, housing her PhD and its legacy works, offers a critical yet imaginative perspective on the challenges of coexisting with wildfire. The platform also supports broader inquiries into bespoke biomimetic, bioengineered, and biotechnological interventions for architectural, urban, and landscape resilience to natural hazards.
Drawing on leading-edge research from several scientific, technological, humanistic, and artistic domains, the transdisciplinary open-access project triangulates diverse forms of data drawn from multiple disciplines, epochs, and research and development communities.
Her postdoctoral research activities have encompassed field studies across the UK, Europe, and US; extensive literature reviews; interviews with pioneering researchers and practitioners operating at the forefront of fire science, fire engineering, wildfire sensing, artificial
intelligence, and an array of bio-inspired, bio-informed, and bio-enabled disciplines. Complemented by both in natura and in vitro studies, systems modelling, and concept development.
Her outputs have included papers and chapters in leading peer-reviewed journals, invited keynote lectures at major academic and industry conferences, as well as media engagements and public-facing communications.
Building Capacity in Bio-innovation in Industry
Dr. Sterry’s research is driven by her passion for blending biological systems with human-designed environments. Most recently, she has launched biofuturism consultancy Bioratorium® and its lab, Labioratorium®, which founded in 2019, interrogate possible future potentialities of bio-informed, bio-inspired, and bio-material science, technology, engineering, and design. Helping clients to identify possible risks and opportunities, including new products, markets, and business models, services include scenario planning; horizon scanning, trend identification, analysis, and extrapolation; speculative design and design fictions; workshops, masterclasses, and curated learning programmes; strategic advisories, and project mentoring.
Thought Leader and Strategic Advisor
A sought-after advisor on scientific, design, and sustainability matters, she has provided strategic direction for global corporations, governments, and NGOs. Her work includes executive briefings, workshops, keynote speaking, and authoring reports and media productions that highlight critical advancements in sustainable innovation, as well as wider sustainability issues. Dr. Sterry is a prominent media commentator, sharing her expertise on design science and foresight globally. She has been featured,
cited, and otherwise referenced in over 450 consumer, trade, and academic publications worldwide, including national newspapers across Europe, North America, Asia, and Oceania. She is published in over 60 titles, and has delivered over 100 invited keynotes at leading international conferences, festivals, and other gatherings. In 2024 and 2025, she was voted in the Top 20 speakers influencing sustainability at board-level globally in polls of over 750 corporate companies.
Academia and Science Communications
Academically, Dr. Sterry’s experience includes visiting lecturer; visiting fellow; thesis supervisor, guest critic, external examiner, and workshop host in fields inc. biodesign, biomimetics, socio-ecological systems theory, sustainability and innovation; university assembly member, course leader, and scientific committee member at several leading architecture and design research institutes including The Bartlett[UCL], IaaC, AA School of Architecture, Central Saint Martins and the London College of Communications at University of the Arts London [UAL], University of Innsbruck, University of Greenwich, University of Salford, Ravensbourne, and AIUL, among others. Her voluntary activities include guest professor with Professors Without Borders, and guest scientist with Lecturers Without Borders.
A member/fellow of several scientific and other STEM institutions, societies, and other networks worldwide, and regular committee member, juror, and advisor to initiatives at the interface of science, design, engineering, and technology, her perspective on advancements across these fields spans many communities of research and practice. She is known for championing transdisciplinary thinking and practice, for challenging received wisdom, for raising awareness of innovative concepts, projects, and talents, and for developing novel approaches to research that reflects the potential inherent in emerging and anticipated developments in academia, industry, and commerce.
Dr. Sterry’s most recent publications include authoring the ‘Design for Wildfire’ chapter in The Routledge Companion to Ecological Design Thinking (2022), and the ‘Panarchistic Architecture’ chapter in The Routledge Companion to Smart Design Thinking (2024), and co-authoring a report on the problem of nano and micro plastics pollution and possible means of remedy.
Specialist Expertise
Primary fields of expertise are planetary and biofutures including biodesign, bioscience, bioengineering, biotechnology, and biourbansim; emerging material, information, and production systems and their applications in science, commerce, industry, and wider society; ecological design and urban and peri-urban resilience to hazards including wildfires, floods, storms and other natural, human, and hybrid events; transdisciplinary, complexity and systems theory and practice; sustainable innovation and enterprise in fields including design, technology, manufacturing, utilities, and the built environment; and corporate social responsibility, environmental social governance, and business ethics.
Designing research experiments, surveys, and reviews
Hosting workshops, roundtables, and interviews
Scenario planning, horizon scanning, and trend analysis
Speculative design, design fictions, and post-normal science
Authoring reports, papers, articles, and opinon pieces
Delivering strategic advisories and project mentoring
Science communications, and industry and public engagement
Scripting for film, radio, and other media
Find links to select publications Dr. Sterry has authored here.
SKILLS
Select Clients
5x15
2Degrees Live conference
Accenture
ADAPTr BioSalon
Architecture Conference & Expo
Balfour Beatty
BBC Radio 4
BioChanges at RCA
BioEngineering Congress
Canadian Institute of Planners
Chartered Institute of Building
City of Greater Dandenong
Clerkenwell Design Week
Coventry University
CRG Exchange
Ecobuild conference
Edinburgh International Science Festival
easyJet
European Centre for Ecotoxicology & Toxicology of Chemicals
Festival of the Future City
Forum for the Built Environment
Future Cities Catapult
Global Research & Innovations in Plastics Sustainability
Greengaged by the Design Council
Grosvenor
Hay Festival
Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia
Interface
International Conference of Bionic Engineering
Inventing the Future conference
Knowledge Transfer Network
London Aware
London Design Biennale
London Design Festival
Longitude Prize
Lux magazine
Manchester International Festival
McGraw-Hill Publishing
McKinsey
Media Ecology & Post Industrial Production conf.
Methven
Ministry of Defence
NESTA
New Engineering Foundation
NSG Group
Oslo Architecture Triennale
Quantum Black
Ravensbourne
Re:Work Cities conference
Routledge
Schneider Electric
Sci-Fi London Film Festival
Science Museum
Seven
Sheppard Robson
Sherborne Girls
Smart City Futures conference
SOENECS
Space10
Startalk Live
SUEZ group
Sustainable Business in Practice conference
Sustainable Design Network Annual Seminar
TEDxLSE - London School of Economics
The Drum - 4 Minute Warning conference
The Future We Want conference
The Future of Housing conference
The Future We Choose launch
The Monument - Masterclasses
Tomorrow's Natural Business conference
Toyota Motors Europe
UK Aware expo
Unbox conference
Unilever
University College London
University College of Estate Management
University College of the Arts
University of Cambridge - Festival of Ideas
University of Greenwich
University of Oxford - Climate Forum
University of Salford
University of Warwick
V&A Museum
Vision London: The Future of the Built Environment
WILD: ReNaturing the City
Wilderness festival
World Bank
World Congress on Sustainable Technologies
Write the Future conference
UBM
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Footage
Find select footage of Melissa discussing science and wider STEM issues for formats including radio, live events, and more at the link below.
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Press
Find select press and media of coverage of Melissa’s design science and wider STEM research at the link below.
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Panarchic Codex®
Find out more about Melissa’s transdisciplinary research and publishing project Panarchic Codex® at the link below.
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Bionic City®
Find out more about Melissa’s Bionic City® project, which asks the question “how would nature design a city?” at the link below.