Charlotte McCurdy is an award-winning designer and researcher who works at the intersection of emerging technology, futures, and existential threats. Her work on carbon-negative materials, “After Ancient Sunlight,” debuted as part of “Nature — The Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial” in 2019, won the Experimental category in the 2019 FastCompany Innovation by Design Awards and was most recently on view at The Design Museum, London. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, CNN, Dezeen, Wallpaper, and Vogue, and has been supported by the MacArthur Foundation, Swarovski, The UN Office for Partnerships, and Science Sandbox. She holds a degree in Global Affairs from Yale University and in Industrial Design from the Rhode Island School of Design. She teaches courses at the intersection of climate change, design research, and experimental design.
Selected:
Appointments:
2024 Design Lecturer, Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (d.school), School of Engineering, Stanford University
2023 Senior Global Futures Scientist, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, Arizona State University
2022 Assistant Professor, The Design School, Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University
2021 Assistant Professor, Industrial Design, Rhode Island School of Design (term)
Awards & Honors:
2023 UN COP28 Blue Zone Badge, representing Arizona State University
2023 Professor of Impact Award, The Design School, HIDA, ASU
2021 Registered Delegate COP26
2021 Dezeen Awards Judge
2018-20 NEW INC, Incubee, Creative Experiments, The New Museum, NYC
2020 Emerging Designer, National Design Awards, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (nominee)
2020 Dezeen Awards: Longlisted for Emerging Designer, Sustainable Design and Wearable Design of the year.
2020 One X One Initiative
2020 Inverse Future 50
2019 Linda Tischler Memorial Award Annual Emerging Designer Award, FastCompany
2019 Winner of the Experimental Category, Fast Company Innovation by Design Awards
2019 PopTech Fellow
2018 Global Security Fellow, RISD, NSquare & MacArthur Foundation
2018 Thomas Edison Award for Innovation and Invention, Industrial Design, RISD
Speaking:
2024 “Blue Tech, Innovation and the Ocean” Panel, Mystic Seaport Museum (forthcoming)
2024 The High School Climate Change Symposium (April 6) (forthcoming)
2024 “Algae and Sustainable Fashion” The American Cetacean Society - San Diego Chapter. (forthcoming)
2023 “De-Industrial Design: 21st Century Sustainability, Determined Optimism, and the Future of Climate Tech” TEDx Berkshires
2023 “Innovations: Recycled Materials,” Berkshire Innovation Center
2023 “The Charismatic Object” School of Architecture & Community Design, University of South Florida in Tampa
2023 Biodesign Challenge Masterclass
2023 Swarovski Creatives for our Future Masterclass
2022 “Hidden Threads: Textiles x Sustainability” Around the World in 80 Fabrics, Repair Atelier, Brown University (May 1)
2022 “Climate of Design: Design of Climate” Tashkeel, Dubai UAE (April 12)
2022 “Biosystems and Sustainability” BRIC: Brown RISD Innovation Community (April 7)
2022 “After Ancient Sunlight: Design for a Post-Petroleum World” Department of Art and Art History, Wesleyan University
2022 “‘Sustainability’: Nature Centered Design” Design For America, Brown University (March 6)
2021 SiGNALS, Youtube Originals
2021 Nest Summit, NYC Climate Week “Faster Forward”
2021 “Gallery Talk: There are Many Ways of Telling”
2021 Knowledge & Power: Issues in Women’s Leadership Plenary, Douglass Residential College, Rutgers University
2020 Plastic Free World, Fashion and Textiles
2020 “Carbon-feel & Plastic-tell” Shan Future Forum, Shanghai Fashion Week
2020 Fashion Innovation Worldwide Talks, 3rd Edition
2020 “Reverse the Trend” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Zero Hour, Bombshelltoe
2020 What’s Wrong With, Podcast
2020 Smithsonian Earth Optimism Summit
2020 “Biodesign Workshop Series” Textiles MFA Studio, Parsons, The New School
2020 Scaling Up Innovations, Study Hall “Climate Positivity at Scale”
2019 Fellow’s Talk, PopTech SHIFT, Camden, ME, USA
2019 On Loop Workshop, A/D/O by Mini, Brooklyn, USA
2019 “Carbon” Material Health: Design Frontiers Parsons Healthy Materials Lab, NYC, USA
2019 Design In The Age Of Climate Change, Linda Tischler Memorial Award, Fast Company Innovation Festival
2019 “Speak to the Mammal: Making Existential Threats more Tractable through Design” Biennial Design Science Symposium “Inclusive Narratives from Nature.” Providence, USA
2019 “Innovation Process” NSquare Innovation Network Convening, Washington DC, USA
2019 “Materials of the Anthropocene,” Cooper Hewitt Triennial Salon, NY, USA
2019 “Creative Experiments,” NEW INC, Science Sandbox, The New Museum, NY, USA
2019 “Demo Day,” NEW INC, The New Museum, NY, USA
2019 “Biomimicry and Biohumility” Biodesigning the Future of Food, New York University, Integrated Telecommunications Program (ITP), New York, NY USA
2018 “Biotechnology and Textiles,” Textiles MFA Studio, Parsons, The New School, NY, USA
Exhibition:
2023-24 “Oceanus” Mystic Seaport Museum, RI
2023 “Chasing Butterflies” National Campaign with Genesis/Hyundai first Electric GV70
2021-2022 The Design Museum, London, “Waste Age”
2021-2022 RISD Faculty Biennial, Gelman Gallery
2021 Sol Koffler Gallery, Providence. RISD Graduate Written Thesis Biennial “There Are Many Ways of Telling / 18 Perspectives on Voice”
2021 Future Fabrics Expo, Paris, The Sustainable Angle
2021 Powerhouse Museum, Sydney Design Week, “Hybrid Digital”
2020-2021 Deep Blue, Maritime Museum of Denmark
2020 Future Fabrics Expo, Innovation Hub, The Sustainable Angle, London UK
2019-2020 “Nature—Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial” Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, New York & Cube Design Museum, Kerkrade, Netherlands
2019 “Wearable Art” Site Projects, New Haven, USA
2019 “AProtoTypical” Industrial Design Graduate Biennial
2018 “Grad Show” Rhode Island School of Design
2017 “Anthology 22” Anthology Reading, Performance and Exhibition Series Brown University
2017 “This is How We Do It” Industrial Design Graduate Biennial, RISD
2016 “We Start from Making” Industrial Design Triennial, RISD
2016 “the bomb” Tribeca Film Festival
Press:
2023 Clark, Whitney “Meet the ASU professor who developed a raincoat made of algae” Good Morning Arizona. TV News
2023 Editors, “Genesis Launches “Keep Beginning” Campaign for Electrified GV70” The EV Report, March 15, 2023
2023 Ackerman, Gwen “The Future of Fashion Grows in a Pond” Bloomberg Green. January 2023.
2022 Sims, Josh “Carbon Clothes” Scenario Digest, Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies.
2021 “Waste crisis a "design-made mess" says Design Museum show curator” Dezeen
2021 The Calendar Magazine
2021 “Welcome to the Waste Age — making rubbish into art at the Design Museum” Financial Times
2021 “New blockbuster Design Museum exhibition ushers in the ‘waste age’” Design Week
2021 “Review: ‘Waste Age: What can design do?’ at the Design Museum” Engineering & Technology
2021 “Waste Age: What can design do? at the Design Museum review: can design save the planet?” Evening Standard
2021 “Fashion Has a Major Environmental Racism Problem — Here's Where The Solution Begins” The Zoe Report
2021 “Seaweed Clothes Can Save the Planet” Vice News
2021 “The Wandering” Opera News
2021 “Immersive Theatrical Experience THE WANDERING Extends to June 30” Broadway World
2021 “The Wandering – Online and By Mail, Worldwide” The Reviews Hub
2021 “What to Watch in The New Year: April 15: The Wandering” Times Square Chronicles
2021 “For 'The Wandering' team, 'creativity is born from constraint'” The Daily Progress
2021 “My Main Input is Sunlight” Reframe Magazine
2021 “‘Fashion Influencers’ 2021” No Kill Mag
2021 “Beautiful Algae Sequin Dress Envisions a Carbon-Negative Future for Fashion” Treehugger
2021 “Algae Sequins Embellish a Petroleum-Free Dress Designed by Phillip Lim and Charlotte McCurdy” Colossal
2021 “this dress has been crafted using algae-based sequins & carbon-neutral fabric” DesignBoom
2021 “Could This Bioplastic Dress Be the Future of Sustainable Fashion?” Global Citizen
2021 “How bioplastic could be the future of fashion” thred
2021 “Phillip Lim and Charlotte McCurdy adorn couture dress with algae sequins to avoid "reaching for polyester” Dezeen
2021 “THE WANDERING Finds Queer Realities in Schubert” Theatrely
2021 “Schubert-inspired immersive production The Wandering opens in April” Playbill
2021 Global News Radio AM640 Toronto, The Morning Show
2020 “A Dress Made Out of Beautiful Green Algae” The Cut, New York Magazine
2020 “FASHION SUSTAINABILITY IS NO LONGER AN OPTION—IT’S A NECESSITY” Coveteur
2020 “Designers Forge New Styles from Petri Dish and Algae” CNN Style
2020 “HOW SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY CAN SAVE FASHION (AND, HOPEFULLY, OUR PLANET)” Nylon
2020 “One x One Pairs Designers With Scientists to Create the Conscious Design Solutions We Need Now” Harper’s Bazaar
2020 “Growing Sequins and Sneakers in a Lab With Public School and Phillip Lim” Vogue
2020 “This Phillip Lim Sequin Dress is Made Out of Seaweed” InStyle
2020 “Why Today’s ‘Fast Fashion’ can be Bad for the Planet” Science News for Students
2020 “Seaweed will save the world” Salone del Mobile.Milano Magazine
2020 “Are you ready to be in a symbiotic relationship with your clothes?” Times of India
2020 CNN Style “Future design: What 'living' clothes can do to absorb carbon emissions”
2020 Icon Design “Alternative Thinkers, la piattaforma che unisce progettisti e finanziatori”
2020 Fast Company “Have an ambitious design idea? This new platform gets brands to give you money”
2020 British Vogue “From Rose Petal Silk And Soy Cashmere To Human Sweat Crystals – Vogue’s Take On The Future Of Fabric”
2020 Design Week “Can an ‘alternative’ design funding platform ‘upend’ the status quo?”
2020 BuzzFeed News “This Designer Created a Raincoat from Algae”
2020 Inverse “Charlotte McCurdy Wants You to Forget Everything You Know About Climate Change”
2020 NOWTHIS “This Designer Turns Algae into Carbon-Negative Plastic”
2020 WWD “In the Lab with Charlotte McCurdy”
2020 The Guardian “Do you have it in green? The living fabrics that can help clean the air”
2020 Hyperallergic “Nature Offers the Best Designs at the Cooper Hewitt Triennial”
2020 WWD “EXCLUSIVE: Telfar Among Brands Exploring ‘Conscious Design’ in One X One Program”
2020 Ideas for Good “「カーボンネガティブ」を着よう。NY在住のデザイナーが開発した藻由来のレインコート ”
2020 SpringWise “Top 7 Carbon-Negative Innovations”
2019 FastCompany “What if Our Clothes Could Sequester Carbon? This Raincoat Does.”
2019 Dezeen “Charlotte McCurdy creates ‘carbon-negative’ raincoat from algae bioplastic”
2019 FastCompany “This biodegradable and carbon-negative raincoat is museum-worthy”
2019 A/D/O Journal “Charlotte McCurdy’s Carbon-Capturing Coat”
2019 FastCompany “A Climate of Change”
2019 core77 “Algae Demand Our Attention”
2019 PBS, Peril and Promise, Climate Artists “Episode 5: Cooper Hewitt”
2019 Surface Magazine “The Boundaries Issue” Fall 2019 “Community”
2019 The Guardian “Making carbon-neutral clothes out of algae: the designers taking on fast fashion”
2019 La Quotidienne, France5 “Idée du jour”
2019 OZY “This Raincoat Made from Algae Offers a Message of Hope”
2019 The New York Times “Glimpsing Our Post-Consumption Future at the Cooper Hewitt”
2019 core77 “This Ethereal Raincoat is Made Out of Algae-Based Plastic”
2019 Wallpaper “The Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial is a call to action for climate change”
2019 WWD “Algae Raincoat, 3-D-printed Faux Fur On View at Cooper Hewitt’s Nature-inspired Triennial”
2019 RISD XYZ fall/winter 2019/2020 “navigating the unknown”
2019 The New Yorker “Nature: Design Triennial”
2019 Curbed “How design is being upended by the climate crisis”
2019 Grist “It’s always summer now — so dress like it”
2019 Gizmodo “Algae Raincoats, Mushroom Caskets: New Exhibit Asks Us to Radically Rethink How We Live With Nature”
2019 A/D/O Journal “Force of Nature”
2019 RISD News “Preventing Gun Violence”