Business
Hugo Alfonso Araujo Cruz
Owner, Sustentavía
Mexico City DF, MexicoAfter working in Sales and Marketing for Unilever, Nike (Spain) and Kimberly Clark for several years Hugo started, with his wife, a field research looking for the collaboration opportunities between private, public and civil sector in Latin America (Fairlink Project). In 2008 they launched Sustentavía (Social Sustainability) and since then they are imagining, innovating and linking minds, sectors and projects.
Lindsay James
Director of Strategic Sustainability, InterfaceFLOR
Grayslake, Illinois, USAAs the Director of Strategic Sustainability for InterfaceFLOR, Lindsay is responsible for strategically leveraging and expanding Interface’s thought leadership in sustainability. She is passionate about the potential to harness our economic system to improve our natural systems.
Saskia van den Muijsenberg
Co-Founder, biomimicryNL
Amersfoort, Utrecht, Netherlands
Saskia worked nine years with Shell in the GameChanger Innovation Workshop Program and acted as a catalyst for innovation, enabling others to explore and develop new ideas then helping to shape and develop real business opportunities. When she got to learn about biomimicry she instantly became infected and took the opportunity of leaving Shell to become one of the co-founders of biomimicryNL.
Jacques Chirazi
Clean Tech Initiative Program Manager, City of San Diego
San Diego, California, USA
Jacques Chirazi is the Program Manager for Clean Tech Initiative Program for the City of San Diego. He is responsible for promoting, fostering and coordinating strategic alliance and collaboration among local, regional, state and federal institutions to develop and execute a clean technology business attraction strategy.
Designers
Amy Coffman Phillips
Founder, Liquid Triangle Design and Consulting
Naperville, Illinois, USAAmy Coffman is an architect and sustainability consultant who works to integrate humanity and nature through the built environment. An avid organic gardener, Amy has let her passion for the natural world inspire her to learn more about garden design, permaculture, and urban agriculture.
Robert Suarez
Senior Portfolio Lead, IDEO
San Francisco, California, USARobert is constantly investigating human behavior and emerging technology to find new opportunities for design and innovation. He has traveled the world to talk to people about their experiences in places ranging from Moroccan cafes and Tokyo rooftops to Chinese gamerooms and Brasilian Favelas.
Doug Paige
Assoc. Professor, Cleveland Institute of Art, Principal, Douglas J. Paige Design
Lakewood, Ohio, USADoug Paige has been teaching Industrial Design at The Cleveland Institute of Art since 1998, with a focus on problem solving methodology. Projects have included collaborations with the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission to explore biomimicry as a methodology for studying the Cuyahoga River bulkheads and fish health.
Mauricio Ramirez
Sustainable Development Coordinator, Bovis Lend Lease
Mexico City DF, Mexico
I’m a dreamer. I used to look for the freedom, like a child. Other people say that I’m smart. I find great pleasure in the discoveries that learning-lovers have. I’m a dreamer, but I try to be active and tenacious to make these dreams a reality.
Biologists
Maria O’Farrell
Training Programs Manager, NC Solar Center
Raleigh, North Carolina, USA
Maria O’Farrell, Training Programs Manager, has been with the NC Solar Center since 2005. As Training Program Manager, Maria oversees the Renewable Energy Technologies (RETDS) and the Green Building Diploma Series (GBDS), a train-the-trainer program, and customized renewable energy company training for their dealers and installers.
Sara El Sayed
Outdoor Environmental Science Teacher, Wadi Environmental Science Center
Cairo, Egypt
Sara is an outdoor environmental science teacher as well as eco-guide in one of Egypt’s Wadi El Gemal National Park. She is eager to continue expanding her knowledge by learning from other biomimics and their experiences in the field, with the deep desire and hope of bringing this new gained knowledge to bear on her work back home, where it can influence and impact sustainable change in Egypt.
Nancy Woodman
Author, Artist, Naturalist, Foxbrier Studios
Poulsbo, Washington, USA
Nan Woodman is an author/artist/naturalist who writes and illustrates books for National Geographic trade and schoolbook divisions, as well as a host of other publishers. A team member on numerous scientific expeditions, Nan has had the privilege of exploring remote corners of the natural world and studying spellbinding inhabitants.
Engineers
Gamelihle Sibanda
Chief Technical Advisor, United Nations International Labour Organisation
Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa
Gamelihle functions in multiple configurations; technical, business, environmental, creative and humanitarian. His goal is to learn and apply Biomimicry principles to contribute to development of products and processes that will revolutionize how certain things will be done globally.
Alessandro Biancardi
Environmental Advisor, UNDP Partnership for the Future Programme
Brussels, Belgium
With a background in Environmental Engineering, Alessandro has been working for the last 15 years for and within several international organization developing and managing projects in the sector of environment and development. Convinced by now that Education is at the core of the shift to a sustainable harmonious world, he is educating himself to be a Human Being; whatever this might mean and concern…
Marsha Forthofer
Research & Development Scientist, Kimberly-Clark Corporation
Roswell, Georgia, USA
Marsha’s work at Kimberly-Clark has taken her all over the world, from manufacturing plants in Vietnam to consumer focus groups in Colombia, to laboratories in South Korea. Her work has ranged from the exploration of consumer product usage behaviors to process development and most everything in between. Her current research is focused on long-range technology development to enable products of the future. She sees the discipline of biomimicry as a place where she can combine her diverse interests and talents in a new and unique way.
Adriana Biasco
Nanobiotechnologist, WAFITECH Project, Regional Laboratory
Lecce, Italy
In the past ten years Adriana has been working on the implementation of electronic devices by using macromolecules like proteins and nucleic acids. By exploring the biological structures at a nanometer level, she has also developed a fascination in structural colours and how nanotechnology can be used as a biomimetic approach to artificially fabricate those nanostructures.