Kobe Phillips

Kobe Phillips is a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of Design Tech at Cornell University. His work spans ecological restoration, gene-environment interaction, participatory ecology, and morphological computation design. As a Research Associate in the Sabin Design Lab, he helps lead the NSF-funded Understanding Rules of Life: Emergent Networks (URoL:EN) project, developing new design and visualization tools for morphogenesis across Arabidopsis thaliana, chicken hearts, and brain tumors. As CTO of the Habitat Laboratory, he works across micro, meso, and macro scales to develop built-environment habitats, including 3D-printed oyster reef modules engineered to regenerate coastal ecosystems and humidity-responsive microclimate pods. Alongside his restoration ecology work, he builds data visualization and physicalization tools that help biologists and ecologists find new methods of data communication and exploration across disciplines. Phillips holds a Bachelor of Science in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology from the University of South Florida and a Master’s in Design Technology from Cornell University.