Sunanda Sharma, Ph.D.
I am an creative biologist and interdisciplinary designer interested in questions of astrobiology, evolution, ecology, biodiversity, and the origins of life. As a designer, I practice biodesign motivated by non-human and non-Earth centric perspectives. I have experience in biofabrication, biohybrid manufacturing, and computational image analysis. I completed my PhD (‘20) and MS (‘16) at the MIT Media Lab as part of The Mediated Matter Group, led by Prof. Neri Oxman, and my BS (‘14) in Biology and concentration in Psychology at MIT, with research advised by Dr. Annabelle Singer and Prof. Ed Boyden. I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the Planetary Science Section, and a research affiliate with the MIT Space Exploration Initiative. Since 2021, I have been part of the Mars 2020 Mission Science Team, as part of the SHERLOC instrument team. I am currently an affiliate scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science and a Project Scientist at Arcadia Science.
“May the waters remain fresh.”
Email: contact@ssunanda.com
Practice: exsitu.bio / xc2.bio
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ssunanda
Vimeo: @ssunanda
Instagram: @themicrocinema
Behance: Sunanda S
Github: @ssunanda
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8822-7960
Doctoral Dissertation: https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/127499 and https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/63724254/designing-the-organism-environment-relationship
