April 11, 2025

Dr. Layton presented BiSSL’s work on sustainable design using bio-inspired techniques at Clemson’s mechanical engineering department graduate seminar on April 11. The research seminar was titled “The Best of Both Worlds: An Ecological Design Guide for Engineering Sustainability & Resilience” and had an audience of mechanical engineering and mathematics.

Abstract: The resilient and sustainable characteristics of Nature’s ecosystems are the result of millions of years of design iterations. These complex systems of systems are made up of interacting species that support their own needs while maintaining system-level functions. Dr. Layton will discuss ecosystems as a relatively untapped source of design inspiration for improving the resilience and sustainability of our human-engineered networks. Adapting quantitative descriptors and analysis techniques from ecology for human designers enables desirable ecosystem characteristics to be used as optimization and design guides for everything from industrial resource networks to power grids. Ecological characteristics such as high levels of materials/energy cycling and a unique balance between redundant and efficient pathways offer novel routes to achieving traditionally ‘at odds’ engineering goals like resilience, sustainability, and cost.