Amanda Sturgeon

Amanda Sturgeon, FAIA, is an award-winning architect, author, and global leader in regenerative and biophilic design. As CEO of The Biomimicry Institute, she champions nature-inspired innovation to tackle urgent challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and social inequality. Her mission centers on building a world where human systems are designed to operate in harmony with the natural world.

Previously, Sturgeon served as the inaugural CEO of Built by Nature, a European network and grant-making fund focused on accelerating the adoption of timber and bio-based building materials. She also led regenerative design efforts at Mott MacDonald across the Asia-Pacific region, emphasizing climate-positive infrastructure and urban development.

During her decade-long tenure as CEO of the International Living Future Institute, she helped shape transformative frameworks such as the Living Building Challenge and founded the Biophilic Design Initiative, catalyzing a global movement toward nature-connected, regenerative architecture.

She is the author of Creating Biophilic Buildings, a book that explores how to bring nature into the built environment. Sturgeon also contributed an essay to the climate anthology All We Can Save and has spoken widely on the health and emotional benefits of biophilic design.

Recognized as a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and a LEED Fellow, she was honored in 2015 with the Women in Sustainability Leadership Award, acknowledging her as one of the top ten women leading sustainability efforts worldwide.

Her work continues to inspire a shift in how buildings and cities are imagined, urging us to create spaces that restore the planet while supporting human well-being.