Dr. Melissa Sterry PhD, PGCert, BA (Hons), CSci, FIScT, FDRS is a chartered scientist, design scientist, complex systems theorist and internationally recognised authority on nature-inspired design for wildfire resilience. Creator of the pyrophytic design paradigm, her research examines how the biochemistries, structures, behaviours and ecologies of fire-adapted species can inform resilient and regenerative architecture, urbanism, infrastructure and planning for wildfire-prone environments. Her work synthesises expertise from fire ecology, the wider fire sciences, biomimetics, engineering, materials science and ecological systems theory to develop innovative approaches for designing communities that coexist with wildfire.
Dr. Sterry holds a PhD from the Advanced Virtual and Technological Architecture Research (AVATAR) group at the University of Greenwich, where her research advanced biomimicry beyond individual organisms to ecosystem-scale design. Her work has been published in leading academic volumes, including the Routledge Companion to Ecological Design Thinking and Smart Design Thinking in Architecture and Urbanism, and she is currently developing a new generation of bio-inspired wildfire sensing, materials and adaptive infrastructure technologies.
She is the founder and director of the wildfire research and publishing platform Panarchic Codex® and of the Design for Wildfire school, and its laboratory the Firescape Lab. Her wider responsibilities include founder and director of Bio-innovation agency Bioratorium®. A Fellow of both the Institute of Science and Technology and the Design Research Society, and a chartered scientist with the Science Council, Dr. Sterry also serves on expert advisory, scientific review and editorial panels internationally. She has advised organisations including the World Bank, Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), Future Cities Catapult and the Canadian Institute of Planners, while delivering keynote lectures and executive education worldwide.
