Computational Designer — Hybrid Living Textiles

* These are the three areas the role works across. Strong candidates will bring depth in one or more and the curiosity to engage with the others.
* 1. Computational textile design
* Develop computational processes for knit and weave design, including parametric and generative methods for structure, pattern, and form.
* Build pipelines for the translation of computational designs into machine instructions (knit programming, jacquard instruction sets), closing the gap between geometry and fabrication.
* Develop inverse-design methods that derive machine instructions from target geometries or performance specifications
* Model and predict textile behavior—deformation, drape, stability, and structural response—to enable forward simulation and design optimization.
* 2. Modeling biological behavior
* Build mechanistic and data-driven models of the biological processes that play out on and through textile substrates—genetic-circuit and gene-regulatory dynamics, and spatial pattern formation, growth, and multicellular signaling—moving fluently between deterministic (ODE) and stochastic formulations, and between first-principles models and ML as each problem warrants.
* Calibrate and constrain these models against experimental data: parameter inference, sensitivity and identifiability analysis, and model-guided design of experiments.
* Use computation to narrow large combinatorial possibility spaces—screening which biological and material configurations are worth realizing in vivo rather than over-specifying systems in silico.
* Characterize and improve the stability and repeatability of living-material outcomes, building predictive models robust to biological and process variation
Maintain a critical, empirically grounded stance on where modeling adds value and where physical experimentation leads.
* 3. Process engineering & automation
* Augment living-textile fabrication through design engineering and automation—programming robots, and knitting/weaving platforms
* Design and integrate sensor systems and controllers for closed-loop monitoring and control of hybrid living-material processes.
* Build tooling and infrastructure that make experimental processes reproducible, instrumented, and scalable across the digital–physical–biological domains.

* Depth in one or more of the following areas
* 1. Computational textile design:
* computational design tools (for example:Rhino, Grasshopper)
* knit/textile programming environments (KnitPaint, Stoll M1 Plus, Shima Seiki APEX); hands-on experience with CNC knitting machines (STOLL and/or Shima Seiki) and/or industrial jacquard looms
* a strong grasp of the physics and mechanics of knitted and woven textiles, fibers, and deformation.
* 2. Biological modeling:
* mechanistic and/or data-driven modeling of biological or physical systems—ODE/stochastic models of genetic circuits and gene-regulatory networks, kinetic modeling, or machine learning for prediction and generative/inverse design
* working fluency in biological reasoning sufficient to collaborate substantively with synthetic biologists (familiarity with combinatorial assembly, multicellular behavior, or microbial systems a plus).
* 3. Process engineering & automation:
* robotics, CNC, sensing, and control systems—programming, integration, and closed-loop automation of fabrication processes.