Whitney Hopkins (whopkins)

ALUMNI 2007 Biomimicry and Design Workshop in Costa Rica
ALUMNI 2008 Bioligist at the Design Table Workshop in Montana

I am a design engineer at a product design consultancy, Smart Design, in New York City.  I specialize in design research and strategy, where I help clients identify areas for innovation and drive the product design process with those insights.

Having worked in the third world, I am highly interested in social issues that relate to design.  My first job out of college was for Engineers for a Sustainable World on a project to rebuild the tsunami-devasted Andaman Islands.  This concept of designing for the "other 90%" captivates me, but I am also interested in social issues that impact us closer to home.  As a member of the FemmeDen, a Smart Design group that looks into issues of gender and design, I work on making products more inclusive and give speeches on the subject across the world.

Environmentally sustainable design,however, is my driving motivation.  In fact, green deisgn is the only reason I pursued design as a career.  Having studied both biology and product design at Stanford, I panicked about career choices until I discovered that I could use biology in design to solve some the planet's problems.  Biomimicry, in particular, balances my love of nature, my biology background, and my design interests.  I am particularly interested in the overlaps between ecology and the built world.