Andrew Maynard PhD
I’m a scientist, author, and (so I tell myself) a leading thinker on socially responsible and ethical innovation. As Director of the ASU Risk Innovation Lab, I’m trying to push the boundaries of how we think about risk and learn to succeed as we develop increasingly complex technologies.
My work spans both emerging and converging technologies, from nanotechnology and synthetic biology to autonomous vehicles, neurotechnologies and artificial intelligence. A professor in the ASU College of Global Futures (where in a moment of weakness I also agreed to be the Associate Dean of Curricula and Student Success), I bring a transdisciplinary approach to problem solving that combines the natural and social sciences with the arts and humanities, to explore new ways of collectively building a better future. I’m actually a physicist by training, and have published my fair share of impenetrable papers. But I’m so disciplinarily confused these days I’m never sure what to call myself!
My popular (as in “wish it was”) science/technology book Films from the Future explores socially responsible and ethical approaches to innovation through the lens of twelve science fiction movies, while my latest book, Future Rising, takes readers on a unique journey through humanity’s relationship with the future, and our responsibility to it.
Oh, and I’m an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science — nearly forgot that!
For a more detailed but infinitely more tedious bio, please see my academic profile.
