ZOE MIYAKO LEE
zoemiyako@gmail.comare.nainstagram
Zoe Lee is a designer, entreprenuer, researcher, and filmmaker based in the United States. After receiving a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), she co-founded BEAM, a research-led creative studio and public imagination engine for people & planet.
She is also a Research Affiliate at the MIT Media Lab’s Community Biotechnology Initiative and a member of NEW INC, the New Museum’s design, culture, and tech incubator, in the Year 12 Creative Science cohort.
Her work focuses on how climate technologies and interventions operate once they move into real places—shaped by ecological conditions, governance, culture, and lived relationships to land and water. Her practice blends research, design, and storytelling to make complex socio-ecological systems legible and negotiable.
Her work has been published and presented internationally, and has appeared in Vox, MIT Technology Review, ArtNews, The Today Show, O! Magazine, Stereo Saints, and Barley Field Magazine.
CV
TIDELANDS 2100
TIDELANDS 2100
Co-Director & Research
Co-Directors: Annie Chen & Zoe Lee [BEAM]
Producer: Ryan Lettieri
Art Director: Ellen Fritz
3D Modeling: Healey Koch, Ian Haut, Leo Roth
Architectural Research: Ram Charan
Partners: University of Rhode Island DWELL Lab, Jason Jarvis
Funders: Anonymous was a Woman (New York Foundation for the Arts), Rhode Island State Council for the Arts
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DESCRIPTION
Sea levels along the U.S. East Coast are projected to rise 9 inches by 2100, already driving flooding, insurance loss, and forced relocations. Yet for communities tied to the shore through culture and livelihood, retreat is not an option. Without new narratives of resilience, the future remains unimaginable—and unprepared for.TIDELANDS is a speculative XR project co-created with Rhode Island’s coastal residents.
Using NOAA flood models, ecological scans, soundscapes, oral histories, and site-specific architecture, it builds immersive worlds that envision adaptation and thriving in place. Rather than assuming abandonment,
TIDELANDS offers a counter-imaginary: what it could mean to live with rising seas. Currently in production, TIDELANDS will move into community workshops in 2026 with partners including the Tomaquag Museum, URI, and the Providence Resilience Project. The project is designed for both local impact and global dialogue, with plans to present from Rhode Island planning forums to the UN Climate Conference (COP) in 2028.
EATING THE WHOLE FISH
EATING THE WHOLE FISH
Publication
Direction & Writing: Annie Chen & Zoe Lee
Graphic Design & Creative Direction: Kayla Feng
Partners: Eating with the Ecosystem
Interviews: Ben Sukle and Sky Kim, Jason Jarvis, Dave Bethoney, Stu Meltzer, Sherry Pocknett, and David Standridge
Copy Edits: Jessa Mellea & Christine Lee
Funders: Interlace Fund, Playbook HQ
DESCRIPTION
Rhode Island exports 95% of the fish it catches and imports 90% of what it eats. Many local species are abundant and nutritious but remain underused because they’re small, bony, and unfamiliar — a cultural gap that leaves local food disconnected from local tables.Eating the Whole Fish is a 200-page cookbook and field guide that teaches Rhode Islanders how to cook and enjoy their overlooked catch.
With recipes, interviews, how-to guides, and over a hundred illustrations, it is both a practical manual and a cultural resource — inviting people to build confidence, curiosity, and connection around local seafood.
Pre-orders for Eating the Whole Fish open this September, with the full release in November 2026. Launch events will take place in Providence and NYC, in partnership with NEW INC, the New Museum’s art and culture incubator.
SCUP AQUACULTURE
SCUP AQUACULTURE
Co-Founder
Team: Caleb Callaway, Geneva Casalegno, Louis Hand, & Zoe Lee
Funders: SeaAhead BlueTech Venture Capital, WEGE Prize
Awards: BlueGreen Innovation Challenge [first place & people’s choice award], WEGE Prize [finalist], Moonshot Award [semi-finalist]
Exhibition: RISD Industrial Design Triennial
DESCRIPTION
SCUP Aquaculture is a collaborative venture addressing social license challenges in offshore wind development through shared-use ocean infrastructure. The project proposes co-leasing offshore wind sites for aquaculture, enabling fishers and aquaculturalists to farm bivalves directly on renewable energy infrastructure and share in its economic and ecological benefits.
Developed in response to conflicts between offshore wind developers and fishing communities in Rhode Island, SCUP adapts multi-use ocean models piloted in Europe to local regulatory, ecological, and community contexts. By aligning renewable energy deployment with working waterfront livelihoods, the project demonstrates how climate infrastructure can succeed when community participation is treated as core infrastructure—not an afterthought.
GROWING COMMUNITY POWER
GROWING COMMUNITY POWER
Reserach Affiliate
Team: Annie Chen, Dr. David S. Kong, Zoe Lee, Zion Michael
Institution:
MIT Media Lab
Partners: Revive & Restore, Parley for the Oceans, Harvard Kennedy School, Practicing Democracy Project, Coral Gardeners, One People One Reef, Alligator Head Foundation
DESCRIPTION
As coral reefs rapidly die in warming waters, new biotechnologies are racing to save them — from probiotics to gene-edited corals. But most never leave the lab. Without ways to partner with the communities who permit and steward reef ecosystems, critical interventions stall before they reach the ocean.
With the MIT Media Lab’s Community Biotechnology Initiative, we developed a Sociotechnical Toolkit for listening, mapping relationships, and organizing collective action in conservation. To share these methods broadly, we built Growing Community Power — a Webflow site that makes the tools accessible to the scientific community and adaptable for real-world use. More than a manual, it’s a resource for integrating trust-building into research and deployment.
Growing Community Power will launch online in winter 2025, offering scientists an open-access platform for applying these methods in their own work. Field deployment begins in Jamaica and Micronesia in 2026, with continued development through the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) to link local practice with global governance.
BEACONS
BEACONS
Collaborator, DEMO Festival
NEW MUSEUM
DEMO
180 MAIDEN LN, NYC
Jun 02—Jun 27, 2025
Partners: SPOLIA Lab,BEAM
Paper Fabrication: Luke Henderson
Curator: Remina Greenfield
Production Director: Tony Tirador
Comissioned by: NEW INC
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DESCRIPTION
In 2025, SPOLIA and BEAM started a collaboration drawn together by a mutual interest in the deep-sea and the current geopolitical focus in its exploitation for critical minerals.
The result of this partnership is Beacons, an environmental installation exhibited at the New Museum’s DEMO festival.
The work translates remote environmental data from the deep sea into immersive sound and light. A set of custom, hanging 3D-printed speakers emit frequencies tied to more than 26 ecological readings, allowing audiences in New York City to experience the fragile underwater ecosystem normally inaccessible to human senses.
AWN-BOT
Awn-Bot
Reserach Assistant
Team: Reece Whatmore, Emilia Keely, Zoe Lee, Adrianne Minori, Dr. Lining Yao
Institution: Morphing Matter Lab; prev. Carnegie Mellon University, currently UC Berkley
Funders: National Science Foundation REU, RISD SPUR Fund
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DESCRIPTION
AwnBot (Morphing Matter Lab, Carnegie Mellon University) is a biodegradable, self-actuating robotic system inspired by the mechanics of plant awns. Developed within the Morphing Matter Lab’s research on self-actuating materials, the project explores how material geometry and environmental responsiveness can enable autonomous motion without electronics or motors.
Designed for soil interaction and ecological deployment, AwnBot investigates how sustainable robotic systems can support low-impact environmental applications, including restoration and reforestation. The work contributes to broader research on biodegradable robotics and demonstrates how material-driven design can reduce technological footprint while increasing ecological compatibility.
SWARM
SWARM
Creative Director
Graphic Designer: Ryan Letteri
Founder: Ali Lee
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DESCRIPTION
Swarm is a next-generation insect repellent brand reimagining bug spray as modern consumer packaged goods. Developed in response to the growing spread of insect-borne risk and everyday outdoor exposure, the project reframes insect protection as a routine, well-designed product rather than a last-resort utility.
Following a $250K pre-seed raise, Swarm positions efficacy, formulation, and design as equally critical to adoption. As Creative Director, the work spans brand identity, product direction, and narrative—shaping how protection, health, and environmental awareness are communicated through contemporary CPG.