Biodesign Challenge Summit 2026

Join us at the Museum of Modern Art and Parsons School of Design for the BDC Summit—an event that brings together university and high school teams with leading voices in art, design, and biology. 

Over two days, finalists showcase their projects before esteemed judges from academia, the arts, and industry to compete for prizes, including the coveted Glass Microbe. Teams are chosen from over 500 students from 17+ countries who worked throughout the academic year to develop their visions. 

You’re also invited to join us on the evening of June 11th for our reception celebrating the opening of a gallery exhibition of the student projects.

Tickets include access to all Summit events, including student presentations, keynote and panel talks, the final awards ceremony, and lunch at Parsons School of Design. To learn more about Biodesign Challenge, visit biodesignchallenge.org.

SUMMIT AGENDA 

Summit Day 1 - June 11, 8:30am – 4:00pm

Parsons School of Design | University Center

63 5th Ave, New York, NY 10003

Opening Reception and Exhibition: Convergent Life - June 11, 6:00pm – 8:00pm

Parsons School of Design | Arnhold Hall - Theresa Lang Center

55 W 13th Street, 2nd Floor New York, NY 10011

Summit Day 2 - June 12, 8:30am – 4:00pm

Museum of Modern Art | Titus 1 Theater

11 West 53rd Street New York, NY 10019

(Please check in at The Ronald S. and Jo Carole Lauder building entrance (MoMA Film entrance) east of the main entrance on W 53rd St.)

SPEAKERS & PERFORMERS

Keynote Speaker: Ray Nayler, Hugo Award-Winning Author

Ray Nayler, acclaimed author of The Mountain in the Sea, brings a uniquely informed perspective on biotechnology, animal consciousness, and the future of life on Earth — themes deeply aligned with the mission of the Biodesign Challenge. Born in Quebec and raised in California, Nayler spent two decades living and working abroad across Russia, Central Asia, Vietnam, the Caucasus, and the Balkans as a foreign service officer and international development specialist. His speculative fiction has earned major honors including the Hugo Awards and Locus Awards, and has been translated into more than a dozen languages. His latest novel, Where the Axe is Buried, was published in 2025, with Palaces of the Crow forthcoming this May.

Wendi Yan (b. 1999, Beijing) constructs speculative epistemologies through research-driven worldbuilding and metafictional simulation. She uses CGI technology, game engines, conceptual sculpture to probe the artifice of knowledge, examine the boundaries of the scientific self, and imagine alternative historical timelines in the psychogeography of the East and West. Yan was an inaugural Steve Jobs Archive Fellow, the Grand Prix recipient of the 6th VH Award by Hyundai Motor Group, and the inaugural resident at A24 Labs. Yan holds an A.B. in History of Science from Princeton University. Her work has been exhibited at international institutions, including ArtScience Museum Singapore, HEK Basel, Ujazdowski Castle CCA, and Hyundai Motorstudio Beijing.

Rory O’Dea is the Associate Professor of Contemporary Art and Design at Parsons. His scholarship explores the ways that visual art intersects with ecology, materiality, and speculative forms of fiction and theory. Publications include Robert Smithson, Land Art, and Speculative Realities (Routledge 2023); “Robert Smithson: Becoming Geological” Antennae: The Journal of Nature in Visual Culture (Summer 2023); “Symbiotic Cultures: The Microbial Ecologies of Contemporary Art,” Entangled and Empowered: Agency in Multispecies Communities (Vernon Press 2025); and “Teresita Fernández’s Elemental Aesthetics: The Material Politics and Poetics of Place,” Venue: A Digital Journal of the Midwest Art History Society (Fall 2026).

Noemi Florea is founder and CEO of the industrial design agency Laero and the inventor of Cycleau, a compact system that turns greywater into drinking water. Using a four-stage treatment process, it removes over 200 contaminants, reduces building water footprints by up to 80 per cent and lowers energy demand by more than a third, all at a fraction of the cost of conventional systems. Cycleau has been piloted in projects ranging from a public bottle filling station in the United States of America, to schools along the Tajikistan–Afghanistan border. By capturing and recycling water close to where it is consumed, the system reduces pollution, conserves resources and supports safe, affordable water access. Florea is an internationally recognized climate innovator recognized by institutions including the UN Environment Programme, UNICEF, and MIT Solve. Florea has also won prizes from the Swarovski Foundation, HP Inc., Halcyon Incubator, and the Trust for Governors Island.

Lola Ben-Alon is a material designer, engineer, and architectural technology scholar. She is Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP, where she directs the Natural Materials Lab and the Building Technology curriculum. She specializes in earth- and bio-based building materials, their life cycles, supply chains, fabrication techniques, recipes, regulations, and policy. Her scholarly work has been published in the Journal of Craft Research, Construction and Building Materials, Building and Environment, the Journal of Green Building, and Automation in Construction, as well as featured in design magazines such as Metropolis, The Architect's Newspaper, and Dezeen. Her work has been exhibited globally including at the Venice Architecture Biennial, New York Latin American Art Triennial, Indian Ceramics Triennial, Tallinn Architecture Biennale, Craft Contemporary Museum in Los Angeles, the Center for Mediterranean Architecture in Greece, London Craft Week and London Design Festival. In 2024, Ben-Alon received the Architectural League of New York Prize. She is a recipient of multiple grants and awards, including the US National Science Foundation's Future Manufacturing grant, and the US Innovation Corps grant. Ben-Alon serves on the board of ACSA's Technology | Architecture + Design, and Elsevier's Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews. Ben-Alon received her PhD from the School of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University, and she holds a BS in Structural Engineering and MS in Construction Management from the Technion.

JUDGES

Judge info can be found on the Summit 2026 website.

PARTICIPATING SCHOOLS

• Academy for Software Engineering

• Art'n'Sci Collective (The Franklin School, Brooklyn Technical High School, Eleanor Roosevelt High School, the Chapin School, the Dwight School)

• Auburn University

• California College of the Arts Architecture + UC San Francisco

• California College of the Arts Design

• College for Creative Studies

• Cornell University

• CUBO (South Korea)

• The Design Village (India)

• Dominican International School (Taiwan)

• DreamYard Prep

• DreamYard x Marble Hill HS

• East Hampton High School

• Fashion Institute of Technology

• Forest Hills High School

• Genspace

• Grace Church School

• HKU University of the Arts Utrecht (Netherlands)

• Indiana University

• Instituto Tecnologico de Monterrey - Campus Puebla (Mexico)

• Instituto Tecnologico de Monterrey - Campus Queretaro (Mexico)

• Keio University (Japan)

• LCI Barcelona (Spain)

• Lincoln Northeast High School + Lincoln High School

• Maine College of Art and Design

• Maryland Institute College of Art

• Massachusetts College of Art and Design

• McGill University (Canada)

• Morris County Vocational School

• New Design High School

• New York University IDM

• New York University ITP

• Northside Charter High School

• Northumbria University (UK)

• Parsons School of Design

• Petrichor Experimental Learning (Taiwan)

• Politecnico di Milano (Italy)

• Robert College (Turkey)

• Rutgers University - Camden

• Rye Country Day School

• San Francisco State University

• Savannah College of Art and Design

• School of the Art Institute of Chicago

• Stanford University

• Syracuse University

• UDIT Madrid (Spain)

• Universidad de los Andes (Colombia)

• Universidad del Desarrollo (Chile)

• Universidad del Istmo (Guatemala)

• University of Ljubljana (Slovenia)

• University of Macau (China)

• University of Michigan

• University of New Mexico

• University of Pennsylvania

• University of Richmond

• University of Tasmania (Australia)

• University of Texas at Austin

• Yunnan Arts University (China)