Author/founder…
Dr. Sterry presenting the closing keynote at the Understanding Risk Balkans Conference in Belgrade, Serbia, September 2018, produced by the World Bank and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery [GFDRR].
Dr. Sterry presenting Panarchistic Architecture in a keynote at the Future of Architecture and Building Conclave, held in Mumbai, India, March 2024.
Dr. Sterry is an expert reviewer of Conservation X Labs Fire Grand Challenge for Western North America 2024/5.
Melissa Sterry
PhD, PGCert, BA (Hons), CSci, FIScT, FDRS, FRSA
Design scientist, systems theorist, designer, and serial founder Melissa Sterry, PhD is recognised as a world-leading authority on the science, technology and thinking that could help humanity to build a brighter future. A design practice; enterprise and innovation; and transdisciplinary science graduate, her career has been spent working with leading-edge ideas, individuals, and institutions worldwide. A recipient of a dozen national and international innovation, creativity and enterprise awards, including the Mensa Education and Research Foundation International Award for enhancing intelligence that benefits society and the Woman Icon of the Year Award (overseas) in the International Inspirational Women Awards, she is listed in the Libertine 100 women with complex, beautiful and potentially world-changing ideas.
Dr. Sterry is the founder/director of London-based bio-innovation and biofuturism consultancy Bioratorium® [Est. 2019], and its lab Labioratorium®, and of the seminal initiative to explore biomimetics, biotechnology, and applied biology for building resilience to hazards in the built environment, Bionic City® [Est. 2010]. A chartered scientist with the Science Council, a Design Council expert, and fellow of the Institute of Science and Technology, of the Design Research Society, and of the Royal Society of Arts, her present and past academic activities include visiting lecturer, visiting fellow, workshop host, Masters thesis supervisor, assembly member, guest critic and external examiner at several leading architecture and design research institutes, including The Bartlett [UCL], University of Innsbruck, Ravensbourne, University of the Arts London, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, AA School of Architecture, and University of Salford, amongst others.
She has delivered over one hundred invited keynotes at leading conferences, symposiums, and other gatherings for wide-ranging corporate, public sector, and non-government organisations worldwide. A member of the National Coalition of Independent Scholars in the United States, her international voluntary commitments include guest professor with Professors Without Borders and guest scientist with Lecturers Without Borders.
Dr. Sterry is published in over 60 international scientific, industry and consumer journals, magazines, books, reports, and white papers including The Routledge Companion to Smart Design Thinking in Architecture and Urbanism for a Sustainable Living Planet, for which she authored the chapter on Panarchistic Architecture; The Routledge Companion to Ecological Design Thinking, for which she authored the chapter on designing to create architectural and urban resilience to wildfire; and the Global Innovation Science Handbook, for which she authored the chapter ‘Biomimetics: Learning from Life’, among others.
She has contributed as a scientific committee member, peer-reviewer, editorial board member, finalists juror, evaluator, and guest curator to several leading scientific, sustainability, built environment, and design journals, conferences, societies, and awards worldwide, including the Fire Grand Challenge (Washington), International Bionic Engineering conference (Boston), International Bioengineering congress (Izmir), and Bio-calibrated symposium (London), and the Silbersalz Science & Media Awards (Berlin/Halle), among others.
Dr. Sterry has held numerous executive, non-executive, and board adviser roles to world-first startups and iniatives in sustainable innovation, design, and technology across her career. Her most recent responsibilities include serving on the executive advisory board to Full Grown - the world’s first commercial company to grow furniture in an orchard.
Her previous works include founding the award-winning sustainability think tank and collaborative laboratory Societás [2004 - 2010]; co-founding award-winning catalyst for rapid innovation in sustainable design for the built environment, New Frontiers [2009 - 2010]; and co-founding the world’s first online visual arts awards, the Creative Graduate Prize [2004-2010] and the Iconique Societás Awards [2007-2010].
Dr. Sterry has been interviewed by and/or had her work featured in over four hundred and fifty international titles including Forbes, New Scientist, The Times, Business Insider, and Design Week, among many others. She has participated as a media figurehead, commentator, and presenter in wide-ranging national and international productions for film, television, radio and internet, including podcast interviews with Neil deGrasse Tyson for StarTalk radio, and Conversations with Mensa in the US, and live and pre-recorded radio interviews and presenting with BBC Radio 4 and Sky radio in the UK.