Melissa Sterry
Climate, fire and resource pressure are now physical risks to property, supply chains and operating sites, not abstract sustainability commitments. Most boards still treat them as reporting categories rather than design constraints on the buildings, campuses and cities they invest in. The gap between net zero language and how organisations actually build, source and locate is where the real exposure now sits.
Dr Melissa Sterry is a design scientist and biofuturist who helps organisations apply nature-modelled design to climate, resource and resilience problems in the built environment.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Melissa Sterry
- She brings primary scientific research, not commentary. Her doctorate at the University of Greenwich AVATAR group produced an original framework, Panarchistic Architecture, for designing wildland urban-interface resilience to wildfires.
- She runs Bionic City, the consultancy she founded in 2010 to ask how nature would design a city, and translates biomimicry, bioengineering and biotechnology into specific implications for buildings, infrastructure and utilities.
- She has briefed senior audiences at the World Bank, Unilever, Toyota, Schneider Electric, Balfour Beatty, McKinsey and the UK Ministry of Defence, and presented at the University of Oxford Climate Forum and the University of Cambridge Festival of Ideas.
- Her work crosses architecture, materials, urban planning and corporate strategy without losing scientific rigour, which makes her credible to engineers, planners and procurement teams as well as to boards and marketing functions.
- She is a Chartered Scientist with the UK Science Council, a Fellow of the Design Research Society and the Institute of Science and Technology, and sits on the Design Council Expert Network.
Biography highlights
- PhD from the AVATAR research group at the University of Greenwich on wildfire resilience for the wildland urban interface
- Founder of Bionic City (2010) and Bioratorium (2019), her biofuturism and biodesign consultancy practices
- Chartered Scientist (UK Science Council); Fellow of the Design Research Society and the Institute of Science and Technology
- Contributor to The Routledge Companion to Ecological Design Thinking and The Routledge Companion to Smart Design Thinking
- Presenter of Leonardo’s City for BBC Radio 4’s The Five Faces of Leonardo and interviewed by Neil deGrasse Tyson on StarTalk
- Mensa Education and Research Foundation International Award; Global Women Inventors and Innovators Network Hall of Fame inductee
Biography
Most sustainability strategy is written in the language of disclosure. The buildings, materials and supply choices it has to deliver against are physical, and they are increasingly exposed to fire, heat, water stress and biodiversity collapse. Melissa Sterry works in that gap.
Her doctorate at the University of Greenwich AVATAR group set out a framework she calls Panarchistic Architecture, which models wildland urban-interface resilience on the way fire-adapted ecosystems behave. From the same body of research she developed Pyrophytic and Xerophytic Architecture, design responses to wildfire and to extreme heat and aridity. The work is grounded in ecological systems theory, not in metaphor.
Her practice connects this research to organisations. Bionic City, founded in 2010, applies biomimetics, bioengineering and biotechnology to urban planning and the built environment. Bioratorium, established in 2019, extends that into a wider biofuturism consultancy with an integrated biodesign lab. Through these vehicles she has briefed the World Bank, Unilever, Toyota, Interface, Schneider Electric, McKinsey, Balfour Beatty and the UK Ministry of Defence.
She is a Chartered Scientist with the UK Science Council, a Fellow of the Design Research Society, a Fellow of the Institute of Science and Technology, and sits on the Design Council Expert Network. Her writing appears in publisher series from Routledge, McGraw-Hill and Hachette, including chapters in The Routledge Companion to Ecological Design Thinking and The Routledge Companion to Smart Design Thinking.
Key speaking topics
- Biofuturism and biodesign
- Climate and wildfire resilience in the built environment
- Bioinspired innovation in materials and manufacturing
- Future of cities and urban systems
- Sustainability strategy beyond disclosure
- Design science and complex systems thinking
Ideal for
- Boards and CSOs setting sustainability and resilience strategy
- Real estate, infrastructure and built-environment leadership teams
- Heads of innovation, R&D and materials in industrials and consumer goods
- Climate, ESG and risk leads inside financial services and insurance
Audience outcomes
- A working understanding of how ecological systems theory applies to fire, heat and resource resilience in physical assets
- A sharper view of where biomimicry and biodesign produce commercial advantage, and where they are still research
- Specific examples of nature-modelled responses to wildfire, aridity and urban hazard
- A more honest reading of the gap between sustainability narrative and operating reality
- Language to connect sustainability commitments to capital, design and procurement decisions
Videos
Testimonials
Melissa Sterry's Articles
Fees
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|---|---|---|---|
| Home Country | Under €12000 | Under £10,000 | Under $15000 |
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