Dr. Rachel Armstrong

Rachel Armstrong, M.D. is Co-Director of AVATAR (Advanced Virtual and Technological Architectural Research) in Architecture & Synthetic Biology at The School of Architecture & Construction, University of Greenwich, London; 2010 Senior TED Fellow, and Visiting Research Assistant at the Center for Fundamental Living Technology, Department of Physics and Chemistry, University of Southern Denmark. She is also leader of Project Persephone for the Icarus Interstellar Group and author of Living Architecture: How Synthetic Biology Can Remake Our Cities and Reshape Our Lives.
 
Rachel is a sustainability innovator who investigates a new approach to building materials called “living architecture”, which suggests it is possible for our buildings to share some of the properties of living systems. She collaboratively works across disciplines to build and develop prototypes that embody her approach.
 
Her award-winning research underpins her bold approach to the way that she challenges perceptions, presumptions and established principles related to scientific concepts and the building blocks of life and society. She embodies and promotes new transferable ways of thinking “outside of the box” and enables others to also develop innovative environmental solutions.
 
Rachel’s awards include: August 2013, nominated as one of ICON’s 50, selected by a panel of a dozen experts identifying the talent shaping our future. June 2013, listed as one of forty women to watch over 40 by 20:40 vision. January 2013, listed in Chip Chick’s Top 9 Inspiring Women of 2012. December 2011, corresponding member of LOICZ (Land Ocean Interactions In the Costal Zone). December 2011, most popular articles for Wired/BMW’s Change Accelerator series on the evolving post industrial world. September 2011, named as number 2 of the 10 ideas that will change the world [#2 Ten ideas that will change the world, Artificial programmable matter, September 2011, Focus, p.38]. February 2011, named as one of Director Magazine’s Top 10 Big Thinkers.
 
Watch Momentum — Rachel Armstrong, Rachel Armstrong — Creating carbon negative architecture, Rachel Armstrong: Architecture that repairs itself?, and TEDxDanubia 2011 — Rachel Armstrong — Children of the Industrial Revolution. View her Facebook page. Read her LinkedIn profile, and TED profile. Follow her Twitter feed.