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
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.