Reflections from a guinea pig
I’m writing this blogpost, which will be my last on germiNature, still astonished that I defended my PhD work last week. Five years ago I embarked on this unknown journey as one of the three guinea pigs of this new PhD program in Biomimicry. A collaborative idea turning into a reality; Biomimicry being our mission and the glue for bringing people from all over the world together.
The desired outcome for a PhD student is being able to impact the field of study and contribute to its further development. Emily, Bill and I are publishing our dissertations in a couple of months, and it will be interesting to see how each of us completed the same goal with a different approach. But before jumping into a meta-analysis, I should first reflect on my outcomes.
I have to admit that jumping is definitely a verb that describes me well. I don’t like to stay in the same place for too long. I started with the intention to take on a Biomimicry project from start to finish:
- Finding & understanding an interesting biological observation
- Abstracting biological principles into more general design principles
- Brainstorming and designing: Developing a biomimetic design
- Turning it into a commercial product
But it ended up quite differently…
My first 2, almost 3 years I spent on the first step, focusing on understanding UV reflection of avian eggshells. Many of my research efforts turned into dead ends. It wasn’t until I focused specifically on a fairly easy to distinguish characteristic of these eggshells (i.e. the cuticle, which is the outermost layer made from non-crystalized calcium carbonate and organic components) that I made advancements in biological understanding. The cuticle is at least one more factor that contributes to differences in UV coloration.
Being the kind of jumpy person that I am, and because of this slow and tedious process, I started losing my motivation and interest in really wanting to dig deeper and find the ultimate answers. I started taking on other projects, which were fueling me again to continue pursuing my PhD. These projects allowed me to also experience the other steps involved in a biomimicry process.
One project was to test if eggshells can be used to provide UV protection since chicken eggshells showed high reflectance in the same region of terrestrial solar radiation that is most harmful to biological (e.g. our skin) and synthetic polymers (e.g. building materials, paint). Our results, recently published in the journal Sustainability, showed that eggshell pieces indeed provide effective and durable photo-protection. However, future research is needed to investigate if eggshells in a more industrial format (e.g. ground into particles) will also provide high photo-protection. It’s important to note that turning a waste product (we create tons of eggshell waste per day) into a useful product is considered bio-utilization and not biomimicry. Not that one is necessarily better than the other, yet, making that distinction is important for identifying when one should consider pursuing the development of a mimic rather than using a natural product. In this case, since waste eggshells are readily available and are causing environmental issues (eggshell waste attracts rats to landfills), it makes sense to use it rather than a mimic.
Another project was to use natural models to inspire a biomimetic building envelope that reduces energy usage, especially by optimizing thermoregulation (step 3). Being exposed to the architectural design world was a real mind-boggler. Why don’t architects understand my explanation of the aestivation mechanism of the African reed frog? How would they implement this? What is an adaptive thermal comfort model and what does heat extraction mean? How will the biomimetic building envelope save energy?
We are currently reshaping our manuscript so that it will speak to a broad range of readers, and clearly explain how we used our natural models as design inspiration. Hope to share it soon!
During my PhD I discovered the fascinating aspects of entrepreneurship. I learned to identify customers’ needs and do market research. If nobody wants or needs your (biomimicry) product, no need to invest so much time and money in developing it. I had the exciting experience of co-founding two startups, one biomimicry-related and one PhD-problem related:
Hedgemon is an R&D startup, which is using the cleverness of the design of hedgehog spines to develop a new cushioning material.
Jaswig designs, manufactures, and sells height-adjustable and sustainable standing desks, which alleviates your back/neck aches from sitting too many hours behind your computer.
Besides all the joy of being involved in a startup, I also experienced a lot of loss in personal productivity and team collaboration due to misunderstandings or lack of communication. But frustrations = opportunity (yes, I’ve developed a business mindset)! I’m currently on a mission to learn from nature how we can communicate more effectively. It will need more digging and testing in real-life business settings before reaching publishable outcomes, but in the meantime you can read my attained insights on my blog “How nature says it”.
One more month to synthesize all of this into a dissertation document… Almost there! I hope that by sharing my experiences, challenges, concerns and research results I can show how formal education facilitates the development and practical use of biomimicry. Bill, Emily and I are the first batch of graduating Biomimicry Fellows, with many more to come! Curious to see what they will work on and how their PhD track unrolls.
And I guess this is a goodbye to you, readers of Germinature. Hope to have sparked some new ideas or questions, and I’m always happy to keep the conversation going! Reach out to me: daphne{at}fecheyr{dot}be. Thanks for reading.
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