Alison Irvine
Resident
Alison Irvine is a science communicator, writer, and educator. She is the founding organizer of the Biodesign Challenge — a global competition and educational program that pairs art and science students to envision the future of biotechnology. Alison has written articles on the intersection of art, science, and social justice for Popular Science Magazine, The Center for Genetics and Society, and Imagine Science Films.
A graduate of the New School for Liberal Arts, Alison has studied political theater at The Freie Universität in Berlin and received the Hunt Fellowship for her theatrical work on the emergence of new biotechnologies and their implications in the context of social and economic inequities.
During the CRISPR (un) commons residency Alison collaborated with Andy Cavatorta to explore the emergence and potential applications of genetic engineering technologies as well as their ethical and social implications. The team investigated how CRISPR-Cas9 connects something as fundamentally human as the concept of memory to the simplest of single-celled organisms, and how recurrent neural networks might reinterpret these data inputs to shed light on what it means to be human.
Alison is currently collaborating with physicians and researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to communicate advancements in cancer research and patient care to the public. She teaches courses on biodesign and biomaterials at The Cooper Union and Pratt Institute in New York City.