15 minutes with: Millie Rose

How would you describe your role to somebody who wasn’t familiar with your area of work?

I use my knowledge of biology and the natural world to design, reimagine, and inspire products or solutions for our clients across defence and security, consumer and manufacturing, and health and life sciences. So, I introduce a different or new way of thinking about clients’ current problems. It’s exciting to apply these insights across different industry sectors.

For example, dragonfly wings are great at cleaning themselves – so you can incorporate that into a cleaning product. It’s really cool. In contrast, I worked on a project with a defence client. We looked at how biology can serve as inspiration for different ways of thinking or designing new technologies or strategies. A lot of what we found came from nature, and could be used to build algorithms for decision-making and problem-solving.

What do you find most interesting about your role?

I think it’s got to be biomimicry. There are so many different avenues you could go down when thinking about it. Essentially it just means taking inspiration from something in nature. It could be using bio-based materials, like the work we do with PulPac to create innovative new products from Dry Molded Fiber, or using a cell to manufacture a protein. You can also take inspiration from how nature does something, and apply it to decision-making technologies that help keep people safe and secure.

You can also take inspiration more generally. How does something think? How does an animal know how to catch its prey? How does a plant decide how far to spread its seeds? That’s why biomimicry is so interesting, it’s so broad. You can integrate a natural, bio-based material and improve sustainability for consumers, or you can think about a defence challenge, and consider how nature has solved a similar problem over billions of years of evolution, and copy that thinking. Biomimicry really is such an interesting part of biology.

What’s different about working at PA?

One thing that makes PA stand out is how broad our knowledge base is. We’ve got a huge collection of people working here, with great diversity of thought. They come from a massive range of different technology backgrounds, and other walks of life. I think the number of subject matter experts we have at PA sets us apart.

What excites you about the work you do at the GITC?

We did a project last year for a defence client – at our Global Innovation and Technology Centre – which was interesting. It was our first real deep dive into biomimicry, and how that could be used in a defence context. It threw out a lot of themes that are relevant outside of defence, too. We looked at the algorithm space which looks to understand how something works in nature and then builds software to copy that thinking or strategy. Then you can use the thinking for lots of different problems that are completely unrelated to biology.

We’re looking at trying to use biology-based algorithms in competition with conventional algorithms and seeing which works best. We’ll see whether an algorithm that’s based on biological evolution, which is slower but learns, might be better than something designed to be fast, as with digital annealers. This project would connect biology with physics, electronics, and software – an intersection of all our exciting teams.

What is the biggest challenge your clients are facing now? And how can ingenuity solve it?

The biggest challenge I see is that organisations can become stuck in their ways of thinking, with teams working in silos or not having time to think about bigger problems. We take those problems, break them down into their core parts, and come up with solutions. We don’t fall into the same holes or sticking points, meaning we can think completely outside of the box and bring ideas the client hasn’t thought of. When you combine that with our very deep technical expertise, we can deliver some interesting concepts and products.

What are the biggest trends you’re seeing in your area of work right now?

A few years ago, trends leant towards more sustainable products or solutions. This would include incorporating nature-based aspects into products, whether that was the material they’re made from or the inspiration behind them. This trend still exists, but the trend I see more now is AI. Particularly in relation to smart connected devices and technologies, or products that have an electric component. I think nature-based solutions will stay but there are new trends that are on everyone’s mind.

If we combine this analysis with more conventional algorithms or decision-making and problem-solving, it will help us figure out what’s most effective.

What advice would you give someone who wanted to follow in your footsteps?

I loved studying biology at university but hadn’t considered what career I’d move into after. Once I left university, I spent five years as a marine biologist, which is very different from what I do now. I ended up back in the UK following the pandemic but had gained deep biology knowledge in a niche that many other people don’t have. That’s one of the reasons I’ve done well at PA, as what I do is quite different.

So, my advice would be to pursue what you’re interested in. Do something you’re good at, explore it, read about it, research it, and think about how it could be relevant in different areas.

What are your goals for the next couple of years?

This year, I’d love to see us grow our biology team at PA, especially within consumer manufacturing, and defence and security.

Biology and nature-based solutions are so exciting, but sometimes they’re misunderstood. Often, biomimicry is narrowed down into thinking about something that's designed to look like an animal or plant, whereas it goes way beyond that, and considers how something functions or inspires how something works. I’m really looking forward to changing this and bringing biology into more conversations with clients. I think it’s an interesting and different addition to how we think about problems.