Neil Willmann

Neil Willmann is an American physicist, retired US Navy officer, ecological engineering designer, and one of Thailand's most experienced permaculture educators. Originally from Chicago, Neil has been engaged with permaculture since the early 1980s, when he first encountered the concept in Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Catalog, which makes him one of the longest-practicing permaculturists in the country.

Neil's academic background is unusually broad. He holds a degree in oceanography from the University of Hawaii, where he worked on recirculating marine aquaculture systems, and a degree in physics from Chicago. Notably, permaculture influenced his path into ecological physics, which draws deeply on thermodynamic systems thinking. He has had numerous opportunities to discuss this with permaculture co-originator David Holmgren. David has frequently said that the thermodynamic ecology of H.T. Odum was in many ways the core of modern permaculture systems design theory. Neil also participated in David Holmgren's inaugural master class in RetroSuburbia, and he finds great promise in this approach to peri-urban redesign.

After spending decades traveling the world with the US Navy, he advanced academically, becoming a Professor of Naval Sciences. While his navy career kept him itinerant, it allowed him to collect global insights into ecological challenges. After retirement he served as associate professor in three universities in Thailand, lecturing across various faculties on subjects including pedagogy, business management and entrepreneurship, though mainly his core subjects of physics and engineering design. An interdisciplinary luminary, his undergraduate and graduate students have often elected to research ecological topics, much to Neil's delight.

His conviction that permaculture offers real solutions has guided him in creating Daruma Eco-Farm, a permaculture research and education center he runs with his wife, Su. Today Daruma Ecovillage is a thriving half-hectare site near the Gulf of Thailand coast, home to food forests, rice paddies, chinampas, aquaculture ponds, natural buildings, and a privately curated library of over a thousand books. More than 800 volunteers, students, interns, and apprentices from around the world have lived and learned there. Neil has led Permaculture Design Certificate courses at Daruma and internationally, and has supervised credited undergraduate and graduate programs with universities in the USA, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany.

Within the grounds of Daruma sits the Mosaic Learning Center, co-founded by Neil. Believed to be the first school in the world with curriculum and pedagogy designed using permaculture principles, Mosaic serves over one hundred children from age three and up. It is certified by the Thai Ministry of Education and employs Agile Learning Principles in a student-directed, English-medium environment where children are grouped not by traditional grade levels but by age, ability, and interest.

He is an Event Patron and organizing committee member for IPC16, the International Permaculture Convergence coming to Thailand in November 2026. As Neil puts it: "The only true 'expert' in ecological engineering design is Nature. Because of this, permaculture design promises a creative, lifelong learning capacity that will always be rewarding."