The MIT professor is on the bleeding edge of synthetic biology, digital fabrication, and bioengineering Last week, Page Six reported that Neri Oxman?the American-Israeli MIT professor, TED speaker, and synthetic biology pioneer?has been ?spending time? with actor Brad Pitt.
Since then, tabloids have gone wild with speculation about this supposed relationship. Now, Oxman and Pitt are on the cover of Us Weekly. To which I say, proximity to a Missouri-raised actor is the least interesting thing about Oxman. She?s a more relevant celebrity in her own right than Pitt is. Here?s why:
1. Neri Oxman is designing entirely new ways of thinking
At MIT, Oxman established the Mediated Matter Group, a department that explores how biological systems and processes can inform the manmade world. This doesn?t mean merely copying nature; it?s about imagining entirely new methods of digital fabrication, engineering, design, and construction. She invented the term ?material ecology? to describe her way of thinking.
For example, Oxman was fascinated with the way silkworms can create strong three-dimensional cocoons using a single material. So she and her team ?hacked? 6,500 of the insects to create a human-scale pavilion.
The point of the experiment wasn?t about whether or not the buildings of the future would be made from silk. Rather, it aimed to gain a deeper understanding of fiber-based structures and how they could become materially and structurally optimized by observing some of na...