IMG_2222.JPG

KIT MCDONNELL.

Trained as a systems and molecular biologist, I operate at the intersection of biotech, design, and sustainability. My perspectives on emerging technology, trend forecasting, and consumer biotech have been quoted in wide ranging outlets from Vogue to Forbes to Disegno Journal. My work is heavily informed by the discipline of environmental anthropology, teasing apart human nature’s relationship with the natural world.

Please get in touch at the bottom of this page if you’re interested in collaborating on biology and climate themed art and design projects or seeking advisory or consulting services.

LATELY

BIOMATERIALS

More to come on this soon!

SPRINT/SHOP

I’m a guest advisor for Sprint/Shop, which gives early stage climate tech start-ups a precise, accessible and authentic story in just 4 weeks.

—

SYNBIOBETA

I was appointed Chair of SynBioBeta 2024’s Climate Tech and Environment Track. SynBioBeta is the world’s leading synthetic biology conference.

LANZATECH

Until recently I was Director of Communications at LanzaTech (Nasdaq: LNZA), a carbon recycling company. The company teams up with microbes to transform waste carbon into raw materials for everyday products—from sustainable aviation fuel to lululemon running shorts and Gucci perfume—and enable a circular carbon economy.

ENKO

I worked as Director of Corporate Affairs at Enko Chem, a Gates Foundation-backed agtech startup, where I developed the company’s foundational messaging and stakeholder management strategy and promoted the imperativeness of practical innovation over moonshots and ideas for preparing for a plant pandemic.

GINKGO BIOWORKS

As an early employee of the synbio company Ginkgo Bioworks, I led Special Projects across the Creative, Commercial, and Capital Investments Teams, and integrated biology into the global manufacturing and circular economy agendas. I formalized the company’s stakeholder engagement strategy, advised F500 executives and NGO leaders, branded a few spinoffs, collaborated on compelling organism design projects, and built and managed the consumer brand business unit—finding a lot of different ways to explore how might we wear, eat, drive, and interact with new forms of biology. I created and produced the company’s annual meeting Ferment and launched Ferment TV, a live broadcast extension, in partnership with the London-based agency Faber Futures.

WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM

From April-October 2020, I was a nominated contributor to the World Economic Forum’s COVID-19 Health & Healthcare Industry Action Group for the mid- and long-term global pandemic response. I chaired a session on pandemic preparedness featuring Helen Clark, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Co-Chair of the WHO’s Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response. In addition to representing the synthetic biology industry, I drew upon my previous molecular systematics research with the NSF-funded Emerging Pathogens Project.

BIODESIGN & CONSUMER BIOTECH

I regularly give talks and lead workshops on the subjects of sustainability, biodesign, material innovation, and consumer biotech. I’ve spoken at Harvard, MIT Media Lab & Sloan School of Management, Broad Institute, Japanese Business Federation Keidanren, RISD, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Central Saint Martins, and Bank of America’s 2019 Consumer & Retail Technology Conference, among other places. I’ve co-hosted a salon with extinct scents at Soho House, co-curated an exhibition in a shipping container, worked on the world’s first museum label printed in DNA (with Faber Futures), and contributed to the multidisciplinary art project Resurrecting the Sublime. I frequently participate in think tanks and advise innovation-based initiatives and events.

DEI

I’ve found myself the token woman in too many situations. I’m motivated to change the “way things have always been” for the individuals working in the biotech industry as well as those affected by its output. I was a founding member of both the Field Museum’s Women in STEM group and Ginkgo’s Diversity Council. In the same vein, I served as a mentor for the Ginkgo Creative Residency, a program that brings new perspectives and modes for collaboration to the emerging industry of synbio and digs into the ethics and impact of this technology.

—

My most formative years were spent among the 30 million specimens in the collections of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History and the wilds of northwest Illinois on my family’s farm. I received my B.S. in Biology from Tufts University, where I founded TEDxTufts and the Tufts Venture Lab, a co-working space and [future] accelerator. I’ve conducted research on myriad organisms: Vermont cheese and Costa Rican ant microbiomes, malaria and other emerging pathogens in Neotropical birds, Chinese pu-erh tea, hermit crabs, and Malawian mammal phylogenentics. I caught the biodesign bug while studying Global Creative Industries during my time abroad at the University of Hong Kong.

Select speaking

  • SynBioBeta 2025: Culture Drives Technology, Biodesign Track, panelist (upcoming)

  • Illinois Institute of Technology & Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s Masters of Tall Buildings and Vertical Urbanism Program, guest lecturer & final exam evaluator (2024)

  • Chicago Innovation: Climate Innovation Summit, The Air We Breathe, panelist (2024)

  • SynBioBeta 2024: Climate Tech & Environment (2024)

    • Moderator: Bioremediation and Biorecycling for the Circular Economy

    • Panelist: The Role of Biodesign in the Next Gen Synbio

    • Emcee: Main Stage, Day 2

  • University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Gardens, Products from Pollution: Carbon Capture and Conversion Exhibition, guest speaker (2024)

  • Rotary Club of Evanston, guest speaker (2023)

  • Illinois Institute of Technology & Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat’s Masters of Tall Buildings and Vertical Urbanism Program, guest lecturer & final exam evaluator (2023)

  • LanzaTech Blend Panel: Women and Advocacy in the Workplace, moderator (2023)

  • LanzaTech Blend Panel: Own Your Career, moderator (2023)

  • Material Research Society, Launching Your Career After Grad School, panelist (2021)

  • Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, Right/Wrong: How Technology Transforms our Ethics with Juan Enriquez, speaker (2021)

  • World Economic Forum COVID-19 Health & Healthcare Industry Action Group, Pandemic Preparedness Session feat. Helen Clark, former New Zealand PM, session chair (2020)

  • Ferment TV Series, weekly host (2020)

  • Material Futures Program, Central Saint Martins, UAL, guest speaker (2020)

  • House of Beautiful Business Living Room Lecture, Post-Techlash Tech–Where do we go from here?, speaker (2020) 

  • IDEO & MIT Media Lab Wearable Biotech & Growable Interfaces Summit, speaker (2020)

  • Columbia University Earth Institute, guest speaker (2019) 

  • Living Materials Workshop, Tufts University European Center Talloires, France, speaker & participant (2019) 

  • HubWeek Open Doors, Broad Institute, speaker (2019)

  • Harvard College Women’s Center Women in STEM (WiSTEM) Career Panel (2019)

  • MIT Media Lab’s Space Fermentation Futures Workshop, participant (2019)

  • MIT Sloan School of Business, ELLE Intl. Fashion & Luxury Management Program, panelist (2019) 

  • Bank of America Merrill Lynch Consumer & Retail Tech Conference, speaker & panelist (2019)

  • MIT & Wentworth’s Leather Innovation ThinkTank, speaker & participant (2019)

  • Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, Nature Design Triennial, Experience Cafe speaker (2019)

  • Tufts University Environmental Lunch & Learn Lecture Series, speaker (2019)

  • Sustainable Futures Thought Leaders Dinner, SynBioBeta Conference, participant (2018)

  • Rhode Island School of Design Augmented Ecologies Workshop I & II, co-host (2018)

  • MIT Japan Conference, speaker (2018)

  • MIT Startup Showcase Japan, speaker (2018)

  • Rhode Island School of Design’s Urban Design Course, guest critic (2018)

  • Harvard University MIS Careers Panel (2017)

  • Brown University & Rhode Island School of Design’s Better World by Design Conference, speaker (2017)

  • Tufts Talks, speaker, NYC (2016) and Boston (2017)

  • Biofabricate Conference, Science Lab presenter (2016)

  • Boston Fermentation Festival Science Corner, booth manager (2016-2018)

  • Tufts University Nutritional Anthropology course, guest speaker (2016)

Event participation by invitation

  • EG Conference Salon, Boston (2020)

  • World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, Davos, Switzerland (2020)

  • MIT Ideas on the Future of Fabric Summit (2019)

  • Ellen MacArthur Foundation CE100 Acceleration Workshops, Niagara, Canada, and Stockholm, Sweden (2019)

  • Parley for the Oceans, World Ocean Week, The Explorers Club (2018)

Honors

  • Roundtable Member, Chicago 2050, World Business Chicago (2025)

  • Chair, Climate Tech & Environment, SynBioBeta 2024

  • Judge, Biodesign Challenge (2023)

  • Forbes: Meet 10 Amazing Women Telling the Stories of Synthetic Biology (2023)

  • Senior Deputy, COVID-19 Health & Healthcare Industry Action Group, World Economic Forum (2020)

  • Resident, House of Beautiful Business (2020)

  • Change Maker, HUBweek (2018)

Select independent advisory work

  • Sprint/Shop 2024 & 2025, external advisor

  • IndieBio NY 2021 Cohort, mentor

  • HubWeek Conference, advisor (2018)

Get in touch