David Edwards

Founder Cafe ArtScience, Harvard Professor of the Practice of Idea Translation

David Edwards is a creator, scientist, and visionary whose work lies at the boundaries of artistic, design and scientific practice. His biannual collaborations with artists, designers, chefs, composers and perfumers (William Kentridge, Philippe Starck, Mark Dion, Mathieu Lehanneur, Christophe Laudamiel, Random International, Massimo Bottura, Neri Oxman, Todd Machover among others) highlight his work at Harvard University, where he is professor of the practice of idea translation. David founded the cultural lab, Le Laboratoire in Paris in 2007, where experiments in art and design engage public audiences and translate into works of culture and bio-inspired contemporary design. In 2014 he moved Le Laboratoire to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and opened his future-of-food restaurant, Cafe ArtScience. David's early work was in applied mathematics, as summarized in his two textbooks, Interfacial Transport Processes and Rheology (ButterworthHeinemann 1991) and Macrotransport Processes (Butterworth Heinemann 1993). Over the period 1995-2005 David pioneered inhalation drug and vaccine delivery for diseases ranging from diabetes to TB. His company Advanced Inhalation Research (AIR) started in 1998 and sold to Alkermes in 1999, developed one of the first inhaled insulin platforms. His company Pulmatrix (a Nasdaq company) was founded in 2004 and develops inhaled therapies for COPD, as well as pioneering approaches to mitigating bioaerosols. His nonprofit MEND(Medicine in Need) operated during the early years of the Gates Grand Challenge program in the 2000s. Since2005 David's creative work has focused on sensorial design and the emergence of a new food system, including his invention of air food (AeroDesigns, started in 2010), edible packaging (WikiFoods, started in 2012) and scent communication (Vapor Communications, started in 2014). David describes his early thought on the cultural lab in his book Artscience: Creativity in the Post-Google Generation(Harvard Press 2008) and The Lab: Creativity and Culture (Harvard Press 2010). David has won many national and international awards and was elected the youngest member of the National Academies of Engineering in the USA and also in France, a member of the National Academy of Inventors, and Chevalier of arts and letters of the French Ministry of Culture.