Natalie Jeremijenko is an artist and engineer, and she is currently the director of the xDesign Environmental Health Clinic at New York University. The Environmental Health Clinic develops and prescribes locally optimized and often playful strategies to effect remediation of environmental systems. Jeremikenko’s work is described as experimental design as it explores opportunities presented by new technologies for non-violent social change. Her research centers on structures of participation in the production of knowledge and information, and the political and social possibilities (and limitations) of information and emerging technologies — mostly through public experiments. In this vein, her work spans a range of media from statistical indices (such as the Despondency Index, which linked the Dow Jones to the suicide rate at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge) to biological substrates (such as the installations of cloned trees in pairs in various urban micro-climates) to robotics (such as the development of feral robotic dog packs to investigate environmental hazards). Jeremijenko’s permanent installation, Model Urban Development [MUD], on the roof of Postmasters Gallery in Chelsea is an environmental experiment which provides infrastructure and facilities for high-density bird cohabitation in New York City. A 1999 Rockefeller Fellow, Jeremijenko was recently named one of the 40 most influential designers by I.D. Magazine. Her projects have been exhibited by several museums and galleries, including the MASSMoCA, the Whitney in the 2006 Whitney Biennial of American Art, and the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in the Design Triennial 2006-7. Jeremijenko is also a visiting professor at Royal College of Art in London and an artist not-in-residence at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto. Previously, Jeremijenko was a member of the faculty in the Visual Arts at UCSD and in Engineering at Yale.
Jeremy Edmiston is principal at SYSTEMarchitects and has been practicing, teaching and researching architecture in New York City for 17 years. His practice is based in re-evaluating the relationship between the built and natural environments in all their permutations. He has received the Architectural League of New York's Young Architect Award with Douglas Gauthier, a Lindbergh Fellowship, and a Department of Energy's Center of Excellence Fellowship for his study into improving the environmental efficiency of high rise buildings. Prior to co-founding SYSTEM, Jeremy pursued his interest in design that acknowledges a green agenda in the offices of Harry Seidler, Bernard Tschumi and Emilio Ambasz. Edmiston's newest project is BURST*, a kit home which establishes a whole new paradigm for environmental residential building. In the summer of 2008, it was exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art as part of its Home Delivery show. Designed in collaboration with Gauthier, a BURST* prototype was built on Australia's East coast in 2005 winning the Royal Australian Institute of Architects 2006 Wilkinson Award, the most prestigious national award given to residential architecture and an Australian Timber Design Award. In 2006 SYSTEMarchitects was a finalist in The Ferrous Park Housing Competition, The Syracuse Connective Corridor Urban Design Competition, and the City of the Future: A Design and Engineering Challenge sponsored by the History Channel. Edmiston holds a Master in Architecture from Columbia University and a Bachelor in Architecture from the University of Technology, Sydney. Currently, he teaches at the City University of New York.
Paul Mankiewicz is a biologist and plant scientist and serves as the Executive Director of the Gaia Institute, Dr. Mankiewicz’s philosophy holds that human communities and natural systems can coexist to mutual benefit. This rests on the hypothesis that where the flow of 'waste' materials from human activities can be cleaned and utilized to create habitat, human industry can be coupled with conserving and creating landscapes that provide an abode for life. Such material cycles can enhance environmental quality, where ecological productivity and diversity become goals of human activity. Dr. Mankiewicz received his Ph.D. in Biology from the City University of New York/New York Botanical Gardens Joint Program in Plant Sciences. He also received a B.A. in Philosophy from the New School for Social Research; an M.A. in Biology from Lehman College; and a M. Phil. in Biology from the City University of New York. He has substantial experience with enhancing, restoring, and constructing wetland and terrestrial ecosystems. A past president of the Torrey Botanical Society, the oldest such organization in the New World, Dr. Mankiewicz is a member and former chair of the Solid Waste Advisory Board of the Bronx and Treasurer of the Soil and Water Conservation District for New York City.
Eric W. Sanderson is a landscape ecologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, based at the Bronx Zoo in New York City. His work occurs at the boundary of ecology and geography; his interests are in developing sustainable relationships between humanity and the rest of nature at all scales. He is a conservation planner, working to save wildlife and wild places in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Sanderson is a cartographer, leading a team which mapped the Human Footprint, the first ever map of humanity’s impact on the planet. He also founded the Mannahatta Project, an effort to reconstruct the historical ecology of Manhattan island at the moment of European discovery in 1609. Sanderson received his Ph.D. in ecology from the University of California, Davis, in 1998; he also holds a B.A.S. in English Literature and Biochemistry from Davis (1989).
Kim Tripp has worked for Gateway National Recreation Area for eight years. She is the Director of the Jamaica Bay Institute, one of several Research Learning Centers throughout the National Park System. She also serves as the Research Coordinator and Lead Resource Manager for the Jamaica Bay Unit of Gateway. She has a BS in Wildlife Biology from Cornell University and a MS in Zoology from NC State University.
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