Founder & Director
Skylar Tibbits is a designer, computer scientist, and Associate Professor of Design Research in MIT’s Department of Architecture. He is the founder and co-director of the Self-Assembly Lab at MIT and also directs the department’s undergraduate Design programs. His research explores self-assembly, programmable materials, and adaptive systems within the built environment.
Tibbits holds a professional degree in architecture with a minor in experimental computation from Philadelphia University, as well as master’s degrees in design computation and computer science from MIT. He has worked with leading design firms including Zaha Hadid Architects, Asymptote Architecture, and Point b Design.
His design and research work has been exhibited widely, including at the MoMA, Centre Pompidou, Victoria and Albert Museum, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, and others. He is the author of Things Fall Together: A Guide to the New Materials Revolution (Princeton University Press, 2021), Self-Assembly Lab: Experiments in Programming Matter (Routledge, 2016), Active Matter (MIT Press, 2017), and co-editor of Being Material (MIT Press, 2019). He also serves as Editor-in-Chief of 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing.
Tibbits’ contributions have been recognized with numerous awards, including LinkedIn’s Next Wave Award for Top Professionals Under 35 (2016), R&D Innovator of the Year (2015), National Geographic Emerging Explorer (2015), WIRED Fellowship (2014), Architectural League Prize (2013), Ars Electronica Next Idea Award (2013), and TED Senior Fellowship (2012). In 2008, he was named a “Revolutionary Mind” by SEED magazine.