Dr. Zhao MA is a designer, engineer, and computer scientist based in Zurich, Switzerland. He is currently a lecturer and research associate at ETH Zurich, where he teaches computational methods for design education, and researches computing applications for living systems, robotic fabrication, and geometry processing. He is also a long-term remote consultant for the 3D-Printing company OPTIndustries where he leads design optimization research for the product team.

Zhao received two master’s degrees from MIT in 2017, and obtained his doctorate in 2021 at ETH Zurich, conducting multi-disciplinary research across the architecture and computer graphics (CG) fields. His featured doctorate work Stylized Robotic Sculpting developed a novel design and fabrication system for carving clay sculptures with robots. The research was shared by Gramazio Kohler Research (ETHZ), Computational Robotics Lab (ETHZ), and Disney Research Zurich.

Believing that modern computational research is impacting beyond current disciplinary structures, Zhao seeks to bridge the fields of design, science and engineering with computing and foster such research through cross-disciplinary collaborations. His work has featured in various awards and patents across disciplines, including architecture, landscape, and computational design.