Patricia Olynyk’s research-based practice investigates science, medicine and technology-related themes and the ways in which social systems, institutional structures, and our senses shape an understanding of our place in the world. Known for collaborating across disciplines on projects that explore the mind-brain relationship, theories related to "Umwelt" and the phenomenology of perception, her work explores the interpretation of scientific subjects, objects and archives in various contexts.

Olynyk was appointed inaugural director of the Graduate School of Art and Florence and Frank Bush Professor of Art in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University, where she currently holds a courtesy appointment in Medical Humanities and a fellowship in the Institute for Public Health. She received her MFA degree with Distinction from the California College of the Arts and was a Monbusho Scholar and a Tokyu Foundation Research Scholar in Japan for four years. She is the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions and her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She is co-director of the Leonardo/ISAST NY LASER program in New York, which promotes cross-disciplinary exchange between artists, scientists, humanists, and scholars.