Janine Benyus


Janine M. Benyus is an American natural sciences writer, innovation consultant, and author.

Life

Benyus graduated summa cum laude from Rutgers University with degrees in natural resource management and English literature/writing. Benyus teaches interpretive writing, lectures at the University of Montana, and works towards restoring and protecting wild lands. She serves on a number of land use committees in her rural county, and is president of Living Education, a nonprofit dedicated to place-based living and learning. Benyus lives in Stevensville, Montana.

Work in biomimicry

Benyus has authored six books on biomimicry, including Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. In this book she develops the basic thesis that human beings should consciously emulate nature's genius in their designs.
In 1998, Benyus co-founded the Biomimicry Guild with Dr. Dayna Baumeister, the Innovation Consultancy, which helps innovators learn from and emulate natural models in order to design sustainable products, processes, and policies that create conditions conducive to life. She is also President of The Biomimicry Institute, a non-profit organization whose mission is to naturalize biomimicry in the culture by promoting the transfer of ideas, designs, and strategies from biology to sustainable human systems design.
In 2006, Benyus co-founded a non-profit organization which launched AskNature.org in 2008. In 2010, Benyus, Dayna Baumeister, Chris Allen, Bryony Schwan and their team combined the non-profit and profit parts into Biomimicry 3.8.

Authored works