Prior to academia, Walter Zesk built custom sailboats, co-founded two Mass-Customization startups, Seeyond and Roomio, and co-founded Conform Lab, a consultancy that helps AEC companies innovate in design automation, geometry optimization and direct manufacturing technologies.

As an educator, Walter has taught design and engineering at a variety of schools including the Boston Architecture College, the Rhode Island School of Design, MIT and Johnson & Wales University. His classes have typically included themes like designing for complex systems, creative computational design, simulation/optimization, digital fabrication, and self-assembling material systems.

As a member of the Self Assembly Lab, Walter researches methods to predict the movement of shoreline sediments with statistical inference, and designs Self Assembling coastal structures that work with nature to stabilize or grow shorelines, reducing the need for armouring or dredging and their resulting unintended harms.