Dr Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg is an artist, designer, and writer. Daisy's experimental practice explores values that shape design, science, and emerging technology through the design of objects, fictions, writing, and curating. She works with leading scientists, engineers, artists, designers, social scientists, museums, and industry around the world. Daisy is lead author of Synthetic Aesthetics: Investigating Synthetic Biology’s Designs on Nature (MIT Press, 2014) and in 2017 completed Better, her PhD at London's Royal College of Art. When we're offered dreams of better futures, she asks: "What is better? Whose better? And who gets to decide?" 

Daisy received the World Technology Award for Design 2011 and the London Design Medal for Emerging Talent 2012. Her work has twice been nominated for Designs of the Year (2011, 2015), with Designing for the Sixth Extinction described in 2015 as “romantic, dangerous… and everything else that inspires us to change and question the world”.

With ten years of expertise in synthetic biology and biodesign, Daisy curated Synthetic Aesthetics (Stanford University/University of Edinburgh, 2010–2013), an international research project between synthetic biology, art, and design funded by the National Science Foundation and the EPSRC, and led the curatorial team for Grow Your Own… Life After Nature, a flagship Wellcome-funded exhibition about synthetic biology at Science Gallery, Dublin (2013–2014). 

Daisy publishes, lectures, teaches, and exhibits internationally. Her work has been shown at MoMA New York, London’s Design Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Israel Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo and the National Museum of China, and is in museum and private collections. She has asked audiences at TEDGlobal, PopTech, Design Indaba, and the New Yorker Tech Fest to consider the design of life, and how we might design better. 

EDUCATION

PhD (RCA) Design Interactions
Royal College of Art, London, UK
2013–2017

MA (RCA) Design Interactions
Dissertation: “Design Evolution: Microbes and the Everyday”
Royal College of Art, London, UK
2007–2009

Visiting Student

Graduate School of Arts/Sciences & Graduate School of Design

Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
2005–2006


MA (Cantab) Architecture, First Class

First in graduating year

Nomination, RIBA President's Medals Awards 

Dissertation: "Consuming Architecture: Exploring the Ethics of a Sustainable Brandscape”
University of Cambridge, UK
2001–2004


ADVISORY ROLES

Editorial Board, Journal of Design and Science, MIT
2017-

Leonardo Group, Science Gallery London
2016- 

MIT Press European Academic Advisory Council
2016- 

Exhibition advisor, The Future Starts Here, Victoria & Albert Museum
2016-17

Advisor, Make Your Own Masters 
2018

RESIDENCIES, FELLOWSHIPS, COMMISSIONS, PROJECTS

Commission
Engineering Life
University of Edinburgh
2017

Commission
Dezeen and MINI Frontiers
2014

Curator

V&A Late: Synthetic Aesthetics
Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK
April 2014

Artist in Residence

Warwick Centre for Integrative Synthetic Biology (WISB)

Warwick University, UK
2013–2014

Lead Curator

Grow Your Own... Life After Nature

Science Gallery, Dublin, Ireland

2013-2014

Commission
Science Gallery, Dublin, Ireland
2013

Commission
EDF Foundation, Paris, France
2013

Design Fellow

Synthetic Aesthetics

Stanford University, USA & University of Edinburgh, UK
2010–2013

EPSRC Knowledge Transfer Award
University of Southampton, UK
2011

Visiting Fellow

ESRC Genomics Forum

University of Edinburgh, UK
February 2010 

Workshop Curator/Leader

Synthesis

Arts Catalyst, University College London, University of Edinburgh
Wellcome Trust Arts Award, London, UK
2010–2011

Residency

SymbioticA, School of Anatomy and Human Biology

University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia
2009 

Cofounder

AlterFutures

London, UK
2009

Co-organiser

The Long Now London

London, UK
2009 

General Public Agency

Project Coordinator

London, UK
2007 

Cofounder/Designer

Green Design, Harvard Graduate School of Design

Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
2005–2006

Architectural Assistant

Architecture + Urbanism Unit
Greater London Authority, London, UK
2005

JURIES

Core77 Design Awards Speculative Concepts Jury Captain
London, UK
2015

Design Indaba Innovation Award Jury
Cape Town, South Africa
2015

Dutch Design Award International Jury
Eindhoven, Holland
2014