Dawn Danby '96
Ecological Design
Dawn Danby is CEO and co-founder of Spherical, an integrative design, research and technology studio offering cosmovision remediation and ontological repair services. She investigates the paradoxical roles of technology in supporting the integrity of Earth’s living systems. The studio is currently working on developing mapping, storytelling, and visualization tools to enhance the ability of communities to heal urban watersheds in Southern California.
Dawn’s ecological design and strategy work has traversed scales and industries, from green chemistry to living infrastructure. After studying industrial design at the Rhode Island School of Design, she researched circular economies and local food systems through an MBA at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute. She co-authored Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century, an attempt to catalogue tools for building a better future. She then spent ten years leading Autodesk’s sustainable design initiatives, advancing the development of digital tools for reducing the ecological impacts of design and engineering. Dawn co-founded Spherical to experiment with the potential of design and technology to support the cultivation of reciprocal relationships across systems and species. She has since explored these ideas as urban-futurist-in-residence at Concordia University, a fellow of the Mozilla-supported XRStudio, and a curator at Gray Area.
After graduating from Lakefield College School in 1996, Dawn received an Industrial Design degree from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MBA in Sustainable Business from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute (now Presidio).