Indigenizing Science and Biomimicing Nature

biomimicry design UNSPLASH Daniel Buhat credit
Seed Grant Semester Awarded
Fall
Seed Grant Award Year
2022

Biomimicry, an emerging STEM field of nature-inspired design, and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), or Indigenous Knowledge Systems both have roots in nature and a deep respect for natural processes. "Indigenizing Science and Biomimicing Nature" plans to use dialogic podcast episodes bringing two or more researchers together to juxtapose their life histories in order to provide multiple understandings of the intersection between biomimicry and Indigenous knowledge systems. The dialogues will create vignettes around specific topics. The podcasts will feature conversations between people immersed in Indigenous knowledge and scholarship with people immersed in biomimicry thinking and practices, and will center on five themes: regenerative systems, food systems, shelter and dwellings, spirituality and cosmology, and women and nature connection. For each theme we will identify people to share a perspective on this topic in the form of a conversation with another person.

Principal Investigator(s)

   

Melissa K. Nelson

 Melissa Nelson | Professor of Indigenous Sustainability in the School of Sustainability, College of Global Future

Sara El-Sayed

 Sara Aly El-Sayed | Co-Director of the Biomimicry Center and Assistant Research Professor at the Swette Center for Sustainable Food Systems