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Brenda Cooper is a science fiction writer, a futurist, and a technology professional. She has published fiction in Analog, Oceans of the Mind, Nature, and in multiple anthologies. She is the author of the Endeavor award winner for 2008: THE SILVER SHIP AND THE SEA, and of multiple other books. Her most recent novel is THE CREATIVE FIRE, part of a duology that will be completed with the release of THE DIAMOND DEEP in October of 2013 from Pyr.
Brenda is avidly interested in saving the world, since it seems like a generally good idea. She blogs about this at www.backingintoeden.com, and can occasionally be found giving talks on the topic. Her website is at www.brenda-cooper.com and she can be followed on Twitter @brendacooper and FaceBook at BrendaJCooper.
Franco is also an editor for Transhumanity.net. He has written articles and essays for Transhumanity, Immortal Life and The Rational Argumentator. He contributed material to the digital anthology Human Destiny is to Eliminate Death: Essays, Rants and Arguments About Immortality alongside such esteemed contributors as Martine Rothblatt (Ph.D MBA J.D.), Marios Kyriazis (MD MSc MIBiol CBiol.), Maria Konovalenko (M.Sc.), Mike Perry (Ph.d), Dick Pelletier, Khannea Suntzu, David Kekich (Founder & CEO of MaxLife Foundation) and many more.
Ciaran Healy is an independent philosopher who uses the scientific method to chart the contour of human suffering and pain. He works to discover new ways to undercut these things at source. His aim is to bring these hidden dynamics to light with clarity and force for the general reader, and anyone up for looking at things in a new way. He has been working at this for about 17 years, and amazingly, still loves it. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife, and as he is unable to keep goldfish alive for long, it’s just them for now.
Christopher Reinert is a Masters student of Human Computer Interaction at Georgia Tech. His interests include human robotic interaction, brain machine interfaces, and the public perception of science.
Daryl Wennemann received his Ph. D. in philosophy from Marquette University in 1994. He has been teaching philosophy at Fontbonne University since 1996. He teaches ethics and a course in critical thinking. He has authored three books, Applied Professional Ethics (co-authored with Gregory Beabout), Capitalism and Community in the Information Age (in a Kindle format), and Posthuman Personhood. He has published sixteen articles including “Freedom”, Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics, ed., Carl Mitcham, MacMillan, June 1, 2005. “Kant”, Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics, ed., Carl Mitcham, MacMillan, June 1, 2005. “Jacques Ellul’s Assessment of the Thought of Karl Marx”, published in the Journal of Professional Proceedings of the Philosophy Delegation to the People’s Republic of China, 2001. “The Future of Work and the Worker: Peter Drucker’s Search for Community”, The Halcyon Series, Western Futures, vol. 22, Jan., 2000, pp 125-140. “The Role of Love in the Thought of Kant and Kierkegaard”, proceedings of the 20th World Congress of Philosophy, Paideia: Philosophy Educating Humanity, March 2000, (link).
Simon’s passion is developing scalable solutions to meaningful problems. His current focus is solving healthcare challenges with digital media. Previously, Simon founded Betterhumans, a digital media company focused on exploring the impact of emerging science and technology. Connect with him at simonsmith.ca, twitter.com/simonsmith and linkedin.com/in/simonsmith.
Chris T. Armstrong is a percussionist/composer, Secular Transhumanist, martial artist and Powerlifter. Back in the 20th century, he was also a student and researcher in Artificial Intelligence (neural modeling), Lisp programming and a professional software geek
Eric Schulke works full time to grow the Movement for Indefinite Life Extension. He was a Director, Teams Coordinator, and Marketing & Outreach team leader at ImmIns; now he works for Longecity.org. He attended University of Wisconsin.
Dustin Ashley is a college student, dual-enrolled to both Mountain Empire Community College and Southwest Virginia Community College. He is majoring in Engineering and working towards a PhD in physics and a PhD in both electrical and mechanical engineering. He spends most of his free time writing for different transhumanist groups, writing programs in C and Java, and reading William Gibson.
Simon de Croft is a PhD student at the University of Otago. His research centers around understanding how neural networks in the brain generate coordinated or synchronized output. His interest in transhumanism centers around exploring how emerging technologies shape our understanding and subsequent modification of the brain.
Zeev Kirsh is a lawyer with background experience in Biology Patent Litigation, Bankruptcy and Securities Litigation. Zeev Graduated from Columbia Law School minoring in finance and is currently interested in biomedical implanted device technology as well as economics and modern finance. He is currently an attorney in New York City and enjoys long distance hiking and commuting to work by bike.
Gennady Stolyarov II is an actuary, science-fiction novelist, independent philosophical essayist, poet, amateur mathematician, and composer. Mr. Stolyarov is Editor-in-Chief of The Rational Argumentator, a magazine championing the principles of reason, rights, and progress. In addition, he is a contributor to Transhumanity.net, Immortal Life, Enter Stage Right, Le Quebecois Libre, Rebirth of Reason, Ludwig von Mises Institute, and a Senior Writer for The Liberal Institute, and Mr. Stolyarov also publishes his articles on the Yahoo! Contributor Network to assist the spread of rational ideas. He holds the highest Clout Level (10) possible on the Yahoo! Contributor Network and is one of its Page View Millionaires, with over 2 million views. Mr. Stolyarov regularly produces YouTube Videos discussing life extension, libertarianism, and related subjects. A list of Mr. Stolyarov’s videos on life extension can be found HERE.
Mr. Stolyarov holds the professional insurance designations of Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), Associate in Reinsurance (ARe), Associate in Regulation and Compliance (ARC), Associate in Personal Insurance (API), Associate in Insurance Services (AIS), Accredited Insurance Examiner (AIE), and Associate in Insurance Accounting and Finance (AIAF).
Tery Spataro is an entrepreneur and marketing expert who has worked with companies like Bloomingdales, Michael’s Craft store, Sally Hansen, Novartis, Whole Foods and Nine West, as well as lectured at universities and international conferences. Tery has MBA in marketing from Regis University. She has written and illustrated a book about quantum perceptions called “The Other Side of the Box”.
John Danaher holds a PhD from University College Cork (Ireland) and is currently a lecturer in law at Keele University (United Kingdom). His research interests are eclectic, ranging broadly from philosophy of religion to legal theory, with particular interests in human enhancement and neuroethics. He can be contacted at philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com.
Five things you may have missed that are relevant to the Technoprogressive / Transhumanist community. Check back every week to be linked to more articles and blog posts written by IEET contributors.
George Deane is currently studying for and MSc in Cognitive and Decision Sciences at University College London. George’s undergraduate studies were in Philosophy. He is especially interested in Neuroethics and the implications of technologies for cognitive enhancement.
Sebastian A.B. is a free-lance finance and science writer. He is a biology major and history minor at a well-known Southern California college. He also a free-market anti-capitalist, left-libertarian, transhumanist anarchist.
David Swanson contributed a chapter to “Why Peace” edited by Marc Guttman, January 2012. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. Swanson helped plan the nonviolent occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington DC in 2011. In December 2011, The Hook newspaper in Charlottesville, Va., named him a runner-up Person of the Year.
Swanson holds a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including press secretary for Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential campaign, media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as communications coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.
Khannea Suntzu describes herself as cosmist, cosmicist, upwinger, socialist-libertarian, hedonist and abolitionist. Khannea is transgendered, and currently lives in the Netherlands.
Khannea is first and foremost a narrative and scenario-builder, using these predispositions to blog and agitate. Her political views entail an arguably far-leftist stance on society and progress. She is persistently critical of pervasive corporatism, world-wide encroaching encroaching oligarchy and the resulting endemic culture of income disparity. While nominally a techno-progressive and transhumanist, khani is quite critical of the ‘ruthlessly’ libertarian undercurrent in these movements, which she labels “neo-Darwinists” (or a range of less flattering terms). She has traveled to several venues world wide, emphasizing the crisis of energy-resource depletion, technological unemployment, the collapse of democracy, while at the same time actively advocating life extension, space industrialization, basic income, societal resilience and the of radically new modes of communication and social interaction.
Khannea brings her backgrounds in interaction design, art, narrative speculation, scenario building and philosophy to paint often confrontational and sarcastic dystopian extrapolations of current trends. She has been quite active ‘experimenting’ with Second Life in the past, and insists on the relevance of open virtual worlds as a means of communication, creativity and cultural advancement.
Will Hiltman is a performer who has studied at New York University, Carnegie Mellon University and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. He has spent many hours learning about radical futurism through books, lectures and the Internet. His interests include: health, performance, cognition, behavior, and futurism.
Uppinder Mehan teaches at the University of Houston-Victoria and writes about postcolonial literature and theory and science fiction. His recent and forthcoming publications include the following: “Postcolonial Science, Cyberpunk and The Calcutta Chromosome.” Intertexts (forthcoming); “The Aesthetics of the Sovereign Self in Conditions of Post-Scarcity.” The Comparatist (36, May 2012,147-159); Terror, Theory and the Humanities. Jeffrey Di Leo and Uppinder Mehan, eds. Open Humanities Press, 2012; “Of Chronotopic rescue by SF narratives,” The Comparatist, (36, May 2012, 314-316); “Teaching Postcolonial Science Fiction.” Teaching Science Fiction Ed. Peter Wright. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 162-178; “The Other Sci-Fi.” Introduction to Focus: The Other Sci-Fi. American Book Review, 32, 2 (January/February 2011), 3.
Massimo Pigliucci has a Doctorate in Genetics from the University of Ferrara (Italy), a PhD in Evolutionary Biology from the University of Connecticut, and a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Tennessee. He has done post-doctoral research in evolutionary ecology at Brown University and is currently Chair of the Philosophy Department at Lehman College and Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His research interests include the philosophy of biology, in particular the structure and foundations of evolutionary theory, the relationship between science and philosophy, the relationship between science and religion, and the nature of pseudoscience.
Prof. Pigliucci is the Editor-in-Chief of the open access journal Philosophy & Theory in Biology. He has been elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science “for fundamental studies of genotype by environmental interactions and for public defense of evolutionary biology from pseudoscientific attack.” In the area of public outreach, Prof. Pigliucci has published in national magazines such as Skeptic, Skeptical Inquirer, Philosophy Now, and The Philosopher’s Magazine among others. He has also been elected a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Pigliucci pens the Rationally Speaking blog, hosts the podcast by the same name, and publishes the “5-minute Philosopher” videos on YouTube.
At last count, Prof. Pigliucci has published 119 technical papers in science and philosophy. He is also the author or editor of 10 technical and public outreach books, including Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism and the Nature of Science (Sinauer), Making Sense of Evolution: Toward a Coherent Picture of Evolutionary Theory (with Jonathan Kaplan, University of Chicago Press), and Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk (University of Chicago Press). His latest book is Answers to Aristotle: How Science and Philosophy Can Lead Us to a More Meaningful Life (BasicBooks).
George Bickers is currently an undergraduate student at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, reading for a BA in English. His research interests currently focus around the transmission and reception of the trans- and post-human within literature and visual culture. He also co-founded and edits ‘Post-Human Press’, which can be found at www.posthumanpress.com.
John Bunzl is an author, lecturer, and businessperson who has written extensively about monetary reform and global governance. He lives in London with his three children.
After studying modern languages and business studies in France, Switzerland and Italy, John pursued a commercial career trading in raw materials for the paper industry and, more recently, in the sale of specialized technical papers primarily to the filtration, abrasives and medical supplies industries.
Having had only a passing interest in international affairs and in the thinking of E.F. Schumacher, in 1998 the idea for Simultaneous Policy suddenly occurred to him as a potential means for removing the barriers which prevent many of today’s global problems from being solved. In 2000 he founded the International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO) and launched the Simultaneous Policy (Simpol) campaign. In 2001, he set out the campaign in his first book of the same name. The Simpol campaign has since steadily been gathering increasing attention, recognition and support amongst citizens, activists, non-governmental organisations, politicians, business people and many others.
In 2003 he co-authored his second book, Monetary Reform – Making it Happen!, written with the prominent monetary reformer, James Robertson. In 2009 he authored a third book, People-centred Global Governance – Making it Happen! A number of John’s articles on global governance have been published by the Journal of Integral Theory & Practice, including Solving Climate Change – Achieving a Noospheric Agreement (2009), Discovering an Integral Civic Consciousness in a Global Age (2012), and Transcending First-tier Values in Achieving Binding Global Governance (2012).
He has lectured widely, including to The Schumacher Society, The World Trade Organisation, The Lucis Trust and at various universities around the world.
Shannon Vyff is a transhumanist, cryonicist, author, and one of the leaders of the Immortality Institute. Vyff published her first novel, 21st Century Kids, in 2007.
Andrew Cvercko lives in Winsted, CT. He works at a drug rehab, teaching mindfulness meditation to people attempting to recover from drug and alcohol addictions. He considers himself a progressive Buddhist and has dedicated his life to bringing meditation techniques and the philosophy behind them to people who would normally not have access to these.
Andrew became interested in the future of technology and transhumanism from a very early age, having had the first of several mechanical heart valves put in his body at the age of three. His worldview is deeply connected to having artificial parts in his body.
Brian Merchant eagerly awaits residing in our post-apocalyptic future. So he writes about climate change, energy, the equalizing capacities of technology, and other stuff like that. He can typically be found in Philadelphia or Brooklyn or somewhere in between.
Eva Linzenbold is a researcher, artist and designer. She is currently a research student at the Royal College of Art, London, where she is exploring the aesthetic and ethical implications of human enhancement.
Her key areas of interest are:
The body and the future human
Redesigning the human body through technology (especially prosthetics).
Beauty and body modification
How we perceive physical beauty, the golden ratio, extreme beauty, aesthetic plastic surgery.
Human enhancement and its ethical implications.
Emerging technologies, transhumanism, designed evolution, creating artificial life, Frankenstein, metamorphosis.
Rick Searle is a writer and educator living the very non-technological Amish country of central Pennsylvania along with his two young daughters. He is an adjunct professor of political science and history for Delaware Valley College and works for the PA Distance Learning Project a state-wide program funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Education that focuses on extending online learning opportunities to marginalized groups both rural and urban. Rick is the creator and writer of the blog utopiaordystopia.com which explores the intersection of science, technology, and politics. He is currently working on a non-fiction Utopia: The Traveler’s and Builder’s Guide that attempts to understand the promise and pitfalls of the Utopian tradition for the near human future.
Correy Kowall is an experienced researcher in the field of robotics, artificial intelligence, and genetic algorithms. In 2005 he founded the breveCluster Lab at Northern Michigan University. Subsequent research explored the modeling and evolution of self assembling agents on high performance cluster computers. In 2007 he was recognized by NMU’s Board of Regents for ‘unusual achievements’. After being granted a prestigious fellowship by National Science Foundation he researched mobile robotics and genetic algorithms at the Artificial Intelligence and Robotic Lab at the University of Oklahoma under Dr. Dean Hougen. In 2009 Correy continued his studies exploring both modular reinforcement learning and artificial interest at the Instituto Dalle Molle Svizzera in Lugano, Switzerland under the guidance of Dr. Mark Ring for the EU’s Intrinsically Motivated Cumulative Learning Versatile Robotics project. Since 2011 Correy has worked as an independent research scientist developing everything from computer vision implementations for hand-held devices to bio-medical robots. His future plans include development of sustainable practices in building, manufacturing, energy and agriculture using robotics and artificial life.
Katrina Bresnahan has over a decade of experience in the non-profit realm, doing everything from program coordination to development. Her background work focuses on areas such as HIV/AIDS advocacy, preventative health education in medically underserved populations, and youth empowerment.
She holds an A.B. in Sociology from Smith College and currently works for one of Connecticut’s regional community action agencies as a coordinator for their Workforce Investment Act Out-of-School Youth Program. Katrina has coordinated fundraising campaigns for Africa before, specifically for West African countries such as Sierra Leone, and looks forward to building on these experiences with the IEET African Futures Project.
Wesley Strong studied sociology at Central Connecticut State University, where he graduated from in 2008 with honors. Wes was awarded the C. Wright Mills Award for Excellence in Public Discourse. He writes regularly on topics of politics, society, culture, and economics from a critical perspective. Wes is an anti-capitalist and often writes and speaks from this perspective. He focuses mainly on popular writing, focusing on reaching working-class audiences.
Wes is an admirer of astrophysics, quantum physics, and theoretical physics and often uses them as a frame to discuss social problems. Transhumanism offers an interesting frame through which to understand the world, particularly as it relates to gender, race, and sexuality. Wes is interested in transhumanism and future-tech for the impacts it may have on society, social power structures, economics, and modes macro-level human interaction.
Richard Matthew Stallman is an American software freedom activist and computer programmer. He campaigns for the freedom of software endusers to use, study, share (copy) and modify software; software that ensures these freedoms legally (via its license) is termed free software. Stallman opposes proprietary software which takes away a user’s rights to exercise these freedoms through restrictive software license agreements, non-disclosure agreements, activation keys, dongles, copy restriction, binary executables without source code and thus forces its users into a role of dependence on a company that seeks to control and monopolize the users and the market via these restrictions. In 1983 Stallman launched the GNU Project to create software of a Unix-like operating system, that will ensure it’s users will have the freedom to use, study, share and modify it. In October 1985 he founded the Free Software Foundation, and in 1989 he co-founded the League for Programming Freedom. Stallman is the main author of free software licenses which legally ensure that users have freedom to use, study, share and modify the software. The GNU software uses such licenses, e.g. the GNU General Public License (GPL), but these licences can be used by anyone, who wishes to ensure enduser’s rights to freedom of software use. The GPL is the most widely used free software license. Stallman pioneered the concept of copyleft that is used in some software licenses (such as the GPL), to ensure that free software (with its enduser freedoms) cannot become part of any proprietary software which would take these freedoms (use, study, share, modify) away again.
Ricardo Barretto is a writer, entrepreneur, humanitarian, and lives in Los Angeles. He is a partner with Alltec tecnologia for finding solutions for Public Health Care Management, Transportation and Energy in Brazil. He is also a screenwriter, having helped greenlight and improve dozens of projects in his native Brazil - the last of which won Best Film in Brazil 2012. He was also part of the team that developed the first sitcom format there and produced, directed and adapted works for the stage with known TV stars. He is currently doing business development for Qless. His main area of interest is researching and developing narrative projects for film and TV dealing with the future of emergent technologies, a video game project based on a series he developed for a major studio, while pursuing his degree in Evolutionary Biology and MA in Mythology and Depth Psychology.
John M. Smart is a futurist and scholar of accelerating change. He is founder and president of the Acceleration Studies Foundation, an organization that does “outreach, education, research, and advocacy with respect to issues of accelerating change.”. Smart has an MS in futures studies from the University of Houston, and a BS in business administration from U.C. Berkeley.
Smart is the principal advocate of the concept of “STEM compression,” (formerly “MEST compression”) the idea that the most (ostensibly) complex of the universe’s extant systems at any time (galaxies, stars, habitable planets, living systems, and now technological systems) use progressively less space, time, energy and matter (“STEM”) to create the next level of complexity in their evolutionary development.
Marios Kyriazis is a Cypriot-born anti-aging physician and biological gerontologist, now living in London, UK. Apart from an MD, he has a Masters in Gerontology from Kings College London, and a degree in geriatric medicine from the Royal College of Physicians. He is also a Chartered Biologist. Kyriazis has over 700 articles or interviews on aging and has written several books on this subject.
He is the proponent of the ELPIs theory (Extreme Lifespans through Perpetual-equalising Interventions, and Founder of the ELPIs Foundation for Indefinite Lifespans.
His current interest is Human Biological Immortality (i.e. the elimination of the rate of mortality as a function of age), and is working with a wide range of trans-disciplinary researchers in order to devise practical approaches to end involuntary death due to aging.
Jonathan Lin is a senior English major attending his final academic year at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. He is Chinese American currently living in the dynamic city of Hong Kong, where technology is firmly embedded into the culture. His main interests are technology public policy, particularly those that concern structural or social networks such as cloud computing. In between browsing smartphone reviews and browsing the think-tanks that populate my Twitterfeed, he tries to keep pace with the cultural developments in China and the West, including the emergence of a formidable social media presence in the world’s most populated country. All this happens when he’s not watching films by Wong-Kar Wai, Paul Wes Anderson, Zhang Yimou, Akira Kurosawa, or Elia Kazan.
Dirk Bruere attended Nottingham University and later what is now Westminster University, and has a BSc in Physics. Subsequently pursued a career in electronics and computer research and is the technical director of Logical Automation Ltd, a company specializing in high end audio visual technology.
Currently a founder member and head of the Phi Division at Zero State (ZS). ZS is a new futurist movement emphasizing activism in the areas of society, economics, politics, Transhumanism, religion, and art. They are working to build a Distributed Autonomous Community (DAC) — the trans-national Zero State.
Also a member of the Futurists Board of the Lifeboat Foundation.
Founder of The Consensus in 2002CE, a political party with a core philosophy of Transhumanism, which has been revised and relaunched under Zero State. Now currently deputy leader. Other interests include the interface between technology and theology explored in the books TechnoMage and The Praxis, and was co-presenter of a UK radio show, OneTribe.
For several years held the position of Branch Master in the World Shorinji Kempo Organization, teaching Zen and martial arts, although is now retired from a teaching role.
Kevin LaGrandeur is Associate Professor of English at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), and Director of Technical Writing Programs. He began exploring the intersections between digital technology, culture, philosophy, and English studies in the early 1990’s and was an early adopter of digital technology in the English classroom. Dr. LaGrandeur has written many articles and conference presentations on digital culture; Artificial Intelligence and ethics; and literature and science. His publications have appeared in journals such as Computers & Texts, Computers and the Humanities, and Science Fiction Studies; in books such as Eloquent Images: Word and Image in the Age of New Media; and in popular publications such as United Press International (UPI), where he recently published an Op-Ed piece on future protocols for developing Artificial Intelligence, called “The Mars Landing and Artificial Intelligence.” His recent book on the premodern cultural history of AI is titled Androids and Intelligent Networks in Early Modern Literature and Culture (Routledge, 2012). His more recent conference presentations have been on transhumanism and the posthuman.
Dr. LaGrandeur has been awarded a variety of grants based on his work, including a Summer NEH grant to participate in a research seminar on computers and English Studies(1995), a fellowship from Hofstra University’s Center for Teaching Excellence to develop a training course for faculty on computer-assisted instruction (1997), a software grant from the Daedalus Corporation to help develop computer-interactive writing courses at Hofstra University (1993-96), an NYIT/New York State DAV Grant (2001) to develop online course materials for Disabled Veterans, an NYIT Center for Teaching and Learning with Technology Grant (2001-2002) to develop Web Design/Web Communication curriculum, and a $25,000 grant from the European Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency for research into the ethics of robotics, particularly the ethical and philosophical underpinnings of recent efforts to develop an artificial conscience for robots; he was also a participant in the NYIT/NY State Virtual Learning Space Grant (fall 2002) to help develop online training site for NY State teachers, and has been awarded several grants to work on the book mentioned above. He has been on the educational technology committees of two universities, spent two years as the chair of one of them, and was also on the educational technology grant review committee for NYIT.
Amanda Stoel is a futurist and Freelance Social Project Developer, in the Netherlands. Amanda’s interests include healthy lifestyle [nutrition], ethics, DIY, sustainability, robotics, artificial intelligence and transhumanism.
John Alexander has a MA degree in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He’s presently an adjunct faculty member at Phoenix College, South Mountain Community College, and Collins College. Areas of research include Socratic philosophy, applied ethics, philosophy of education, and philosophy of religion. He has peer-reviewed papers published in HEC Forum, Teaching Philosophy, Philosophy of Management, Journal of Business Ethics, Philosophy in the Contemporary World, The Reasoner, and Business Ethics Quarterly. He has taught at Grand Valley State University (Allendale MI), Grand Rapids Community College (Grand Rapids MI), Baker College (Muskegon MI), Davenport University (Grand Rapids MI), and Marian College of Fond du Lac (Fond du Lac WI). Prior to teaching full-time as a visiting professor at GVSU in 2001, he had thirty-five years experience in manufacturing in positions ranging from hourly paid to Director of Operations.
Rüdiger Koch is CTO and founder of the first African Bitcoin exchange, Fikisha Africoin in Lagos/Nigeria. Previously, he worked as an IT Consultant in the banking and IT industry in Germany, Switzerland, Thailand and Singapore. He holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Technical University of Braunschweig. He lives with his wife and 2 kids near Munich and near the Alps where he enjoys mountain biking in Summer and skiing in Winter.
Rüdiger serves as head of the Business & Bitcoin department of ZeroState and has previously served as vice chairman of De: Trans.
Omid Safi is the leading progressive Muslim intellectual in America. He is a Professor of Islamic Studies at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, specializing in contemporary Islamic thought and classical Islam. He is the Chair for the Study of Islam at the American Academy of Religion, the largest international organization devoted to the academic study of religion.
Omid was born in the US, but has spent half of his life living in various Muslim countries, such as Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, and India. His family originally comes from the city of Esfahan in Iran. His grandfather was one of the leading Ayatollahs of Iran, though one diametrically opposed to Khomeini. Omid grew up in a deeply religious family that traces itself back to the Prophet Muhammad.
Omid is an award-winning teacher and speaker, and was nominated six times at Colgate University for the “Professor of the Year” award, and before that twice at Duke University for the Distinguished Lecturer award. At the University of North Carolina, he received the award for mentoring minority students in 2009, and the Sitterson Teaching Award for Professor of the Year in April of 2010.
Martin O’Shea, MBA, is a business lecturer in Dublin, Ireland. He lectures on strategy and HRM at undergraduate and post-graduate levels. His interests are varied and include areas relating to human development through technological and bio-tech development. Martin also writes on the political and economic ramifications of rapidly advancing technologies
Nathaniel K. Miller is a writer and aspiring psychologist. His work has been published in Mad Scientist Journal, and is forthcoming at Apocrypha and Abstractions. He is co-editor of Pravic Magazine.
Brad Carmack graduated from the JD/MPA program at Brigham Young University in April 2011, and became a licensed California attorney that same year. During school he majored in biology, clerked for Justice Joel Horton of the Idaho Supreme Court, and worked as a teacher’s assistant for human resources law, biodiversity, management ethics, and bioethics. Brad initiated and hosted BYU Ethics Professor luncheons to bring together the various ethics endeavors taking place at BYU. He also led BYU Jail Outreach for two years as President, helping to tutor inmates in English, math, and science. Brad coauthored a business ethics case, Caprica Energy and Its Choices, published by the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.
Michael Lee is a futurist who founded the World Future Society’s Southern African Chapter and the Institute of Futurology. He is CEO of the ATM Industry Association, a non-profit trade association with more than 3,500 members in 60 countries. He has addressed and chaired industry conferences throughout the world. He has also written articles and blogs for industry publications and has been quoted in newspapers and trade and news magazines including Time Magazine and the Wall Street Journal.
Jason Sussberg is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and producer, focused on BIG ideas in human progress and social justice. He started his career working in sport television for the San Francisco Giants and the Golden State Warriors. After receiving a MFA at Stanford University in film, he co-founded Dogpatch Films in San Francisco. He is a digital media generalist who trains his lens on social and political topics ranging from jailed journalists, justice system reform and futurism. He co-directed Long for This World - Live Forever or Die Trying, with Structure Films.
Dustin Eirdosh is serving as the Visiting Asst. Professor in Social & Evolutionary Neuropsychology at the University of Toliara, a unique biological and human sciences institution in the Atsimo Andrefana (southwestern) region of Madagascar. Originally trained as a Human Ecologist; Eirdosh has spent most of the last decade developing education innovation projects in Maine, as well as as a producer of Grass-fed beef & dairy products in Maine, Washington State, and Pennsylvania. While studying the moral psychology of food business at the University of Kassel in Witzenhausen, Germany; he moved to Madagascar to work on projects that integrate evolutionary sciences across disciplines; including in the reflective development of emerging technologies.
As coordinator for the Madagascar branch of the Africa Futures Project (AFP) at IEET; Eirdosh is working with the newly created IT Leadership Team to create the first University website in the country that is specifically aimed towards engagement with the global community. His work in the AFP dovetails with his development of University of Toliara as the first African Nation member of the EvoS Consortium for Evolutionary Studies (www.EvoStudies.org); a network of higher educational institutions working to integrate evolutionary studies (including genetic through technological adaptive systems) across the biological and social sciences. Eirdosh’s core academic interests lie in the application of moral psychology towards evolutionary education and emerging technologies; especially in the domains of agricultural and human enhancement.
He maintains two blogs:
MythicMinds.us: Exploring the evolution of human sciences in southwestern Madagascar
MythicMeats.com: Offering evolutionary insights on cattle and cultural fermentation
Nikola Danaylov is a philosopher, singularitarian, and infopreneur. Born in Bulgaria, he moved in 1998 to Canada where he completed an HBA in Political Science, Philosophy and Economics at the University of Toronto plus an MA in Political Science at York University.
It was at York University that Nikola got deeply interested in the Technological Singularity and wrote a research paper titled “Hacking Destiny: Critical Security at the Intersection of Human and Machine Intelligence.”
During the summer of 2011 Nikola completed the Graduate Studies Program at Singularity University and returned home to Toronto, Canada where he lives with his beloved wife Julie. He writes for SingularityWeblog.com.
Katherine McCarthy has completed pre-nursing and office technology courses at Tunxis Community College . McCarthy examines the potential philosophical and social transformation implied in scientific progress through science fiction writing.
Jathan Sadowski is a graduate student in Applied Ethics at Arizona State University. His research focuses on: sustainability ethics; collective action problems; and the ethics/policy of science and technology. He graduated with an undergraduate degree in Philosophy from Rochester Institute of Technology. In addition to academic journal articles, Jathan publishes essays for a general audience in places such as 3 Quarks Daily and Evolution: This View of Life.
Tom Mooney was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has an eclectic background as a writer, political activist, criminal defense attorney, and he’s presently the Executive Director of The Coalition to Extend Life, the largest political organization trying to bring about a “war on aging’. As a student, he was elected Vice President of the “United States National Student Association"in Washington D.C.
For 15 years Mr. Mooney was a columnist for the Journal papers, and deeply involved with his law firm. In 1978 he was elected to the Maryland Legislature and reelected in 1982. He served on the prestigious Ways and Means Committee helping to oversee the states budget and taxation policies.
In 1986 he ran for Governor of the state. He easily won the primary but lost the General election and returned to practicing law.
After deciding that a “War on Aging” needed political support as well as medical and scientific involvment, Mr.Mooney started “The Coalition to Extend Life"in Washington D.C. which is the largest political organization promoting a national “War on Aging”
Mr. Mooney lives in College Park, Md.; he has four children and six grandchildren .He has received many awards and acknowledgments from former Presidents of the United States, Governors, and other prominent individuals in American society.Also,Mr.Mooney is an avid runner who has competed in marathons and a dedicated cyclist who attempts to live his life as “green as possible.”
Alexander Hoekstra is a biotechnology contributor at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and Project Coordinator for the Personal Genome Project (PGP), an open-source initiative to explore the role of genomes and environments on human traits, based at Harvard Medical School. He also works with fellow PGP advisor and coordinator Preston (Pete) Estep at TeloMe, Inc. - a DNA-collection and telomere analysis company co-founded with George Church.
As an active member of the DIYBio movement and proponent of Open Science, Alex is orchestrating the Open Science Summit, an annual conference to evolve and extend discussions identifying the issues facing science in its many practices, and exploring ways in which those practices could be made better through openness. He maintains that for science to excel in its potential as a human endeavor for benefit of humanity’s whole, scientists (accredited or not) must embrace and advance a networked infrastructure of collaboration in inquiry, creativity, exploration and production.
Before earning his BSc in Genomics and Molecular Genetics at Michigan State University in 2012, he worked as a researcher at Wayne State University School of Medicine - Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, The National Institutes of Health - NIDDK, and Michigan State University - Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics.
Valerie Tarico is the author of Trusting Doubt: A Former Evangelical Looks at Old Beliefs in a New Light and Deas and Other Imaginings. Raised in a staunch fundamentalist family, Valerie attended Wheaton College, where the Billy Graham Center houses a museum dedicated to the history of Evangelism in North America. She obtained a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Iowa before completing postdoctoral studies at the University of Washington. She subsequently joined the staff of Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Seattle and ran Children’s Behavior and Learning Clinic in Bellevue, Washington, before moving on to a private clinic.
For years Valerie maintained a psychotherapy practice and practiced “don’t ask, don’t tell” about matters of faith. But as it became clear that George Bush and Evangelicals were opening a public conversation about Christianity, she decided to join the fray. She shrunk her practice and began writing and speaking about fundamentalism, American style. Her articles frequently are featured at TruthOut and ExChristian.net. “TrustingDoubt’s Channel” on Youtube offers life tips and insights for recovering fundamentalists. Only one of her brothers thinks that she is actually channeling Satan.
Not satisfied with spending her life energy critiquing all-too-familiar orthodoxies, Valerie is actively engaged in interspiritual dialogue that aims to find common ground in humanity’s shared moral core. She speaks regionally to churches and secular groups about topics such as moral development, the psychology of belief, and wisdom convergence as well as the dark side of orthodox dogmas. She is the founder of WisdomCommons.org, an interactive site that allows users to find and discuss information about virtues that emerge repeatedly across secular and religious wisdom traditions.
Valerie Tarico’s essays can be found at Away Point.
Palden Gyal was born in Tibet. He escaped to India when he was eleven years old through the Himalayas with his brother where he went to high school. After receiving a scholarship, he attended Red Cross Nordic United World College in Norway for two years before coming to the States as a University Scholar at Duke university for undergraduate studies. He is currently a junior at Duke, majoring in philosophy and political science. Palden writes poems, op-eds and articles on various topics of his interest from philosophy to political issues of the Sino-Tibetan conflict.
Robert Ness spent 6 years working in Internet startups in China before entering a PhD program in statistics. He works on problems in network biology as well as systems biology - related app development. He writes about culture and trends in the DIYbio movement.
Beth Turnage lives in Connecticut, and writes mostly about astrology in her blogs Astrology Explored and True Crime and Astrology, freelancing for other astrology websites and e-publications. A reader of science fiction and fantasy, she occasionally turns her hand at a science fiction story.
Alan Brooks has written for Alcor, ‘Mongo Stack’, and the Colorado Daily, a liberal Gannett university-oriented newspaper. He discovered futurism in 1976, and transhumanism in 1989.
Since the completion of his Master in Architecture degree at 2010, Méndez has been deeply committed to the research and development of innovative building’s technology which fits to the unique characteristics of the Caribbean context. Fostering the image of an architecture scientist, Mendez currently leads a biomimicry-based design studio at the School of Architecture of the Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico. He also is project designer at Ramirez-Gonzalez Studio currently researching on regenerative architecture for resilient environments. Wilfredo Méndez was recipient of the AIA Henry Adams Award for distinguished work and merits during the M.Arch studies. Also, he was recipient of the Jaime Cobas Award for Best Thesis Research of the School of Architecture. During its Bachelor of Environmental Design he was recipient of the Dan-El Viera Oliveros Award administered by the Association of Architects and Landscape Architects of Puerto Rico.
Lee-Roy Chetty began his career in advertising at Ogilvy Cape Town, working as a digital strategist on some of South Africa’s biggest and most loved brands. He holds a masters degree in media studies from the University of Cape Town and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. A two-time recipient of the National Research Fund Scholarship, he is currently completing his PhD at UCT and an economics degree with Unisa. He is the author of Imagining Web 3.0 and the science, media and technology contributing editor with Radio 2000. He was recently selected by the United Nations as one of 70 young global shapers to form a UN think tank in Geneva, Switzerland researching opportunities and challenges in a world of seven billion people.
Steven M. Wise is founder and director of the Nonhuman Rights Project. The purpose of the Nonhuman Rights Project is to attain legal personhood for nonhuman animals through litigation. With the help of dozens of volunteers, the Nonhuman Rigfhts Project intends to file its first suits in 2013. He has written four books, Rattling the Cage -Toward Legal Rights for Animals, Drawing the Line - Science and the Case for Animal Rights, Though the Heavens May Fall - The Landmark Trial That Led to the End of Human Slavery, and An American Trilogy - Death, Slavery & Dominion on the Banks of the Cape Fear River, and is working on a memoir. His numerous law review articles have been cited hundreds of times. He teaches “Animal Rights Jurisprudence” at Lewis and Clark, Vermont, St. Thomas, and the University of Miami Law Schools, and has taught “Animal Rights Law” at Harvard and John Marshall Law Schools. He has practiced animal protection law for 32 years.
Guillermo Campos has been an animal rights activist since 2005, collaborated with some spanish animal rights organizations and was involved in a variety of projects and campaigns. Eventually focused activism on group coordination and philosophical writings. A supporter of pragmatism instead of idealism, was interested in educating the public about vegetarian lifestyles initially, but changed goals completely after learning about the greater possibilities of in vitro meat and nanotechnology to drastically reduce animal exploitation and start a cultural paradigm shift in the way humans perceive their relationship with non-humans. Currently looking for people interested in promoting sustainable concepts like in vitro meat, vertical farming, CEA (controlled environment agriculture), and/or any system or technology with the potential to help humans and non-humans at the same time.
Studied computer science in high school and college. Speaks spanish, english, a bit of japanese and started to learn german.
Known as Leyvenn in the virtual space, likes to learn about science and technology in order to help spread the word. A supporter of technological development and transhumanism, wishes to abandon biotic nature by assuming synthetic physiology and gynoid morphology based on flexible materials, and get artificial cognition enhancements in the future. Loves to immerse into artistic virtual worlds and explore the feelings awaiting within them.
Jaap Boekestein is a Dutch writer of science fiction, fantasy and horror. His career includes jobs like bouncer, private investigator and publisher. Currently he works in IT for the Judicial Institutions Service of the Ministry of Security and Justice where he is responsible for the execution of punishment and liberty-depriving measures imposed by order of a court.
Jake Anderson is a writer/comedian/filmmaker living in San Diego, CA. His genres of trade are science fiction, futurism and comedy, but he also writes short non-fiction pieces about corporate cool hunting and conspiracy theories. When not exploring ideas from the comfort of a rocking chair, he suffers hot yoga and bad horror movies. He also cherishes oysters on the half shell, bloody marys, and speculations about the Singularity. Jake is currently working on an e-book of subversive science fiction short stories set in the near future. Check out his blog or follow him on Twitter @OverTheMoonSF.
Michell Zappa is a global emerging technology strategist who has spent his life between São Paulo, Stockholm, Amsterdam & London. His work, called Envisioning Technology, focuses on explaining where society is heading in the near future by extrapolating on current technological developments. His research develops plausible scenarios by drawing on current trends, technological imperatives and a degree of Sci-Fi inspiration. In this, he tries to guide both corporations and public institutions in making better decisions about their (and society’s) future.
L.S. McGill, as Valkyrie Ice, transgendered tranhumanist and future succubus, has been writing about and observing the accelerating curve of technological advancement for over 25 years. With a willingness to look outside of the “mainstream” and consider social trends and developments many consider fringe, she strives to bring a wider outlook to her writings, and show that the future will likely be better than you think.
Christopher de la Torre earned dual bachelors degrees in biology and English from Eastern Connecticut State University, and his masters thesis for George Mason University explores collaborative science discourse and social media. He is considering a degree in bioethics. His creative work is featured in Vogue and other venues, and he writes about science and society for publications like Singularity Hub and The Huffington Post. Visit him online at urbanmolecule.me
Ilkka Vuorikuru is a PhD student in sociology of science and technology at the University of Turku, Finland. He works as a Technoculture Adviser, journalist, coach and motivational speaker. Other projects include podcasting and general entreprenerial activism. He is also writing a book on Finnish Social Entrepreneurship. Ilkka is the co-founder of Longevity Finland.
Travis James Leland is a science-fiction writer and poet best known for his short fiction work “Final Adam,” which won the 1998 Cabrini Literary Guild Award. He received his B.A. in English, Creative Writing at California State University, San Bernardino. He is currently working on his first full-length novel entitled “Singular,” about a young man who becomes the world’s first true posthuman, and how society both accepts and rejects him. Leland currently lives in Llano, California with his wife and son. His Twitter is @TJL2080.
Loraine (Lori) Rhodes, CLA, is the Legal Research/Writing Manager for Terasem Movement, Inc. in Florida, where she focuses her legal knowledge and background in microelectronics on the intersection of law and technology. Lori is also the Managing Editor of Terasem’s Online Journals of Geoethical Nanotechnology and Personal Cyberconsciousness and may be contacted at Lori@terasemcentral.org.
Jønathan Lyons is a transhumanist parent, an essayist, and an author of experimental fiction both long and short. He lives in central Pennsylvania and teaches at Bucknell University. He’s on the Web at http://the-foundry.net/jonathanlyons/ His fiction publications include Signal to Noise: A Novel Infused With Music.
Seth Baum is Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (GCRI, http://gcrinstitute.org). He received a PhD in Geography from Pennsylvania State University and was recently a post-doc with Columbia University's Center for Research on Environmental Decisions. His research covers a broad range of topics, including artificial general intelligence, environmental policy, ethics, economics, education, and astrobiology. He also helps lead the global catastrophic risk research community via GCRI, the Society for Risk Analysis, and other organizations.
Dr. Baum is also active at the interface of academic scholarship and other sectors of society. Through GCRI, he is building ties between global catastrophic risk researchers and other relevant professionals. He is also active in public scholarship through collaborations with artists, entertainers, journalists, and other members of the media. His research has gotten wide media attention including interviews in the Discovery Channel, Fox News, and Talk Radio 702 (South Africa), plus additional coverage in The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, MSNBC, and other publications.
Carol Lloyd is the Executive Editor for GreatSchools.org. Previously she was an award-winning columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, and education editor at Salon.com. Her journalism has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, This American Life radio show, Salon.com, The Los Angeles Times, and the SF Weekly, and she’s been featured on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, PRI’s The World and KQED’s Forum and To the Best of Our Knowledge. Her bestselling book “Creating a Life Worth Living” was published in 1997 by Harper Collins.
Pietro Speroni di Fenizio is a scientist and mathematician who holds a Master degree in Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems and a PhD in Bioinformatics. He has always felt a fascination for the future, and is now trying to discern how the dynamical dialectic between exponential technolgical improvement and the twin crises of Peak Oil and Climate Change will play out. From 2008 he has been researching in e-democracy, developing the website Vilfredo.org to test alternative ways to reach consensus in a participative environment. In his personal life he has an interest in Taoism, Permaculture, Tai Chi. His publications are available from publications.pietrosperoni.it.
Dick Pelletier is a weekly columnist who writes about future science and technologies for numerous publications. He’s also appeared on various TV shows, and he blogs at Positive Futurist.
Breki Tomasson is founder and editor-in-chief of the pop culture website CSICON.org, and the co-creator of The Extropist Manifesto. A native of Iceland, he presently lives in Stockholm.
Tsvi Bisk is director of the Center for Strategic Futurist Thinking and author of The Optimistic Jew: A Positive Vision for the Jewish People in the 21st Century (Maxanna Press, 2007). He also is Contributing Editor for Strategic Thinking for The Futurist magazine , the official publication of the World Future Society, and he has published over a hundred articles and essays in Hebrew and in English.
