Prof. Dr. Michael John Gorman

Prof. Dr. Michael John Gorman is Founding Director of Naturkundemuseum Bayern - BIOTOPIA Lab, a new museum linking life sciences, art and design currently in development at Schloss Nymphenburg in Munich and University Professor (Chair) in Life Sciences in Society at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich.

Previously, Michael John was Founding Director of Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin, dedicated to igniting creativity and discovery where science and art collide. In 2012 he founded Science Gallery International with the goal of bringing Science Gallery experiences to a global audience, with Science Gallery spaces now being established in London, Bangalore, Melbourne and Venice. He has curated or co­ curated over 25 exhibitions bridging science and art.

Prior to that, Michael John was Lecturer in Science, Technology and Society at Stanford University and has held postdoctoral fellowships at Harvard University, Stanford University and MIT. He received his PhD in history from the European University Institute in Florence. He has written books on topics ranging from a 17th century Flemish painting to the architecture of Buckminster Fuller. His most recent book is Idea Colliders: The Future of Science Museums, published by MIT Press in 2020

Selected Publications

• Idea Colliders: The Future of Science Museums. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2020 [monograph]

• Gorman, Michael John and Koert van Mensvoort, Next Nature, in Lipps, McQuaid, Condell, Bertrand, eds., Nature: Collaborations in Design: Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, 2019, pp. 49-55

• Gorman, Michael John and Giovanni Aloi, Biotopia: The Future of Natural History Museums, in Antennae, #50, Remaking Nature (Spring 2020) pp. 54-63

• The Scientific Counter-Revolution: The Jesuits and the Invention of Modern Science, London: Bloomsbury, 2020 [monograph]

• Buckminster Fuller: Designing for Mobility: Milan: Skira/Rizzoli, 2005 [monograph]

• "The Sweet Smell of Synthetic Biology, GROW YOUR OWN… Life After Nature, at Science Gallery". In: Annick Bureaud, Roger Malina & Louise Whiteley (Eds.), META-LIFE: Biotechnologies, Synthetic Biology, A-Life and the Arts. Boston: MIT Press, 2014.

• “Experiments in the Boundary Zone: The Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin.” University Museums and Collections Journal 2 (2009). 7–14.

• “Trinity says: Let’s Talk.” Nature 451 (2008). 522.