IMPLEMENTING BIOMIMICRY THINKING FROM FUNDAMENTAL R&D TO CREATING NATURE-ALIGNED ORGANIZATIONS A Dissertation Presented to The Graduate Faculty of The University of Akron In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Daphne Fecheyr-Lippens August, 2017 i IMPLEMENTING BIOMIMICRY THINKING FROM FUNDAMENTAL R&D TO CREATING NATURE-ALIGNED ORGANIZATIONS Daphne Fecheyr-Lippens Dissertation Approved: Accepted: _______________________________ _______________________________ Advisor Program Director, Integrated Bioscience Dr. Peter H. Niewiarowski Dr. Hazel Barton _______________________________ _______________________________ Co-Advisor/Committee Member Interim Dean of Arts and Sciences Dr. Matthew D. Shawkey Dr. John Green _______________________________ _______________________________ Committee Member Dean of the Graduate School Dr. Ali Dhinojwala Dr. Chand Midha _______________________________ _______________________________ Committee Member Date Dr. Karim Alamgir _______________________________ Committee Member Dr. Dayna Baumeister _______________________________ Committee Member Dr. Pravin Bhiwapurkar ii DEDICATION This work is dedicated to my grandfather Opapie, who sadly past away on Oct, 4th 2014. He was our family’s nutty professor and injected his children and grandchildren with the exploration bugs. His curiosity and strong will resulted in several new verbs and words that were so often used in our family that I didn’t even realize they were invented by him. His enthusiasm and life vision encouraged me to dream about things that seem unreachable. iii ABSTRACT The appreciation for nature as inspiration for design has happened throughout human history. However, it wasn’t until the late 1990s that biomimicry was put forward as a discipline providing a framework to more actively and consciously use nature’s time-tested and refined strategies to inform innovative products, services and systems. The implementation of biomimicry as a design tool to solve real-life, time-sensitive challenges inherently requires an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach. Biological knowledge needs to be made available, either by new research or by extracting it from existing literature. This then needs to be abstracted into design principles to be used to inform the creation of new designs. Ultimately this design needs to be commercialized by organizations that remain successful under rapidly changing conditions. In this PhD work I explored the implications of implementing biomimicry thinking throughout this entire process, which included the scientific, engineering, design and business world. It is through experiential and observational learning that people are trained to design, support, and lead biomimicry endeavors. By sharing my experiences, challenges, concerns and research results I am hoping to boost the further development of biomimicry as a tool for technological and social innovation, as well as promote the potential of biomimicry to facilitate a sustainability transition and therefore increase its prominent implementation for solving real-life, time-sensitive challenges. The growing iv interest and successful application of biomimicry can ultimately result not only in more environmentally conscious technologies, but also make organizations themselves nature-aligned. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Everyone who knows me has most likely been exposed to my emotional side, so no need to hide that writing this section comes to me with lots of emotions. Relief, proudness, excitement, but also a little nostalgia. This PhD was not only an opportunity to develop my professional skills; it has also been a beautiful personal chapter in my life. My passion for biomimicry motivated me to move from my oh so comfortable house in which I had been living my entire life. Although really motivated to explore the (biomimicry) world, the immature girl I was then had no idea how challenging it would be to leave her hometown in Belgium together with her supportive and loving family and friends. Little she knew the amazing people she would meet along her journey in ‘Meurica. Peter Niewiarowski, not only have you been the father of this groundbreaking Biomimicry PhD program, you were also my surrogate father who kindly obligated me to wear a helmet when biking to campus or give me advice on difficult life decisions, from which car insurance to take to whether I should continue my PhD. Your support, advice, patience, encouragement and professionalism have been key for my PhD work. Although your feedback on my research proposals and articles was always very critical, and at times hard to deal with, it assured me to go find my boundaries, which is vi necessary for growth. You kept asking provocative questions that pushed forward my research endeavors, all with the motivation to further advance the development of biomimicry. Even better, you were always great at bringing in humor as balancing ingredient. Matthew Shawkey, from the beginning you have given me tremendous trust and support, have been extremely patient, and were always at first hand for giving advice, guidance and constructive feedback. Not only were you pivotal in shaping me as an independent researcher, you have played an important role in welcoming me into the USA. I’ve had the pleasure to play never-ending board games while sipping a coffee, eating a delicious home-cooked meal from Liliana or watching the Super Bowl. It came as great surprise to welcome you, Liliana, Tristan, Keira, and now little Sophia to Belgium. I’m still surprised when seeing you run around in the streets of Gent. I’m very honored to have had Karim Alamgir, Pravin Bhiwapurkar, Dayna Baumeister, and Ali Dhinojwala as my PhD committee members. There is much to say about them besides the amount of difficult to spell and pronouncing last names. Thanks to their broad areas of expertise I gained interdisciplinary insights and a broadening perspective on my research goals. Whatever type of research challenge, I was peppered to overcome it thanks to them (this is quite bluntly translated from Dutch so I hope this is also an expression in English). The collaborative project with Pravin Bhiwapurkar has given me valuable exposure to the architectural design world, which appeared to be a hidden fascination of mine. Dayna Baumeister was actually one of my main firing ingredients that cultivated my passion for Biomimicry, so when she accepted my vii invitation to be on my committee I was thrilled. She has given me the opportunity to deepen my knowledge in biomimicry thanks to our inspiring conversations, her thought- provoking questions and her insights as one of the foundational members of the field. I would like to thank everyone from GLBio, and especially Tom Tyrell and Don Knechtges, as it wasn’t thanks to their endless efforts that this biomimicry PhD program was made possible. This PhD was also not able without the financial support given by Parker Hannifin, who gave GLBio the trust in finding a suitable doctoral student who would in return be active in their organization to bring biomimicry as a new tool for innovation and problem solving. Although I was not as deeply embedded in my sponsor company as my fellows, my exposure to the industrial world was truly fascinating. Never would I have imagined how complex the production of a simple hose could be. Also the accessibility of their research equipment has been crucial for the progress of my PhD work. Thank you Pete Buca for the inspiring conversations, the learning opportunities and sharing your expertise from the industrial world. Thank you Jonathan Markley and Joseph Horinger for the many hours in assisting me with my experimental PhD work. Emily Kennedy and Bill Hsiung, we were the guinea pigs of this new PhD program. I’m not exaggerating when I say I would have not survived the test without you. Being able to share difficulties, frustrations and panic attics made me feel like I could handle it (most of the times at least). I will never forget our champagne moment when our paper finally got accepted. And besides our professional achievements we have endless good memories to remember as our friendship continues, however far away we are. viii We were so excited to see our program grow over time. It is truly impressive which talented people UAkron was able to attract. Thank you to all those bright, motivated minds that I was able to meet, although my time with some of you unfortunately was much too short (yes the blame is on me). Besides our biomimicry hub, I also had the pleasure to be part of the colorful Shawkey lab. Each one of you inspired me how fascinated and determined you were in your research interests. Sometimes some of you were so deeply fascinated by your results that I had no clue what you were talking about during our lab meetings. However, it pushed me to show more dedication to my own research. Thank you to everyone from the entire IB department for making this PhD possible. I have enjoyed the interesting lectures and the social encounters. A special thank you to Hazel Barton, whose enthusiasm, continuous support and administrative skills gave me the courage to get this PhD done. This journey would have been incomplete with the new friends I made during my time in Akron. Gaya, you were my sunshine not only when walking by my lab, but your laugh and friendship gave me strength, warmth and happiness. Brani, I’m still debating if I found your scientific advice in the lab or your sushi-making and Halloween-custom making advice more valuable. Stefanie, Lauren, Katie, Sara(h), Spencer, Matt, Jake, Mar, Ricardo, our lovely neighbors, Michael, Candy dough, Mimi, Ceth, …Who would have thought that the city of “nice lawns in the middle of nowhere” had too many amazing people to name them all in my acknowledgements. ix Off course my friends at home also deserve a thank you, as even from far away they supported me and with many of you we shared (although often virtually) our PhD frustrations. How in the world can I ever find the words that would honor my incredible family? I’m sorry to everyone who reads this, but I think I’m one of the luckiest persons with the family I have.