Whitney Hopkins

As a design engineer at New York-based Smart Design, Whitney Hopkins specializes in research and strategy. But it’s environmentally sustainable design – and biomimicry in particular – that is her driving motivation.

Currently pursuing her Masters of Architecture at Parsons the New School for Design, her degrees in Human Biology and Product Design Engineering from Stanford naturally led her to connect biology with design. As a member of the Biomimicry Guild, Whitney is committed to developing and promoting nature-inspired design solutions by focusing on overlaps between ecology and the built world.

A strong advocate of designing for ‘the other 90%,’ she worked with Engineers for a Sustainable World on a project to rebuild the tsunami-devastated Andaman Islands. But she’s also interested in social issues that impact us closer to home. As a member of Smart Design’s FemmeDen, a group that looks into issues of gender and design, she works to influence the making of products that are more inclusive.