EJrik Conway is a historian at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. His duties include research and writing, conducting oral histories, and contributing to the lab’s historical collections.  Conway enjoys studying the historical interaction between national politics, scientific research, and technological change. His publications include Blind Landings: Low-Visibility Operations in American Aviation, 1918-1958 (2006), Atmospheric Science at NASA: A History (2008), and Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco to Global Warming (with Naomi Oreskes, 2010).

Ivan Amato is a science and technology writer, editor and communicator based in Silver Spring, MD. Currently the journalist-in-residence at UCSB’s Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, he is the author of three books—Super Vision: A New View of Nature (2003), Pushing the Horizon: Seventy-five years of high stakes science and technology at the Naval Research Laboratory (1998), and Stuff: the materials the world is made of (1997). A former managing editor at Chemical and Engineering News, Amato recently has been organizing and running science cafés in Washington, D.C., and now here in Santa Barbara. 

Patrick McCray is a CNS PI and professor in the UCSB Department of History where he researches and teaches about post-1945 and contemporary science and technology. Before coming to UCSB, McCray worked at the Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics and George Washington University. He is the author of numerous publications and books on the history of science and technology including Giant Telescopes: Astronomical Ambition and the Promise of Technology (Harvard, 2004). His most recent book is titled The Visioneers: How a Group of Elite Scientists Pursued Space Colonies, Nanotechnologies, and a Limitless Future (Princeton, 2012).

Dr. Denis Simon is Vice Provost for International Strategic Initiatives at Arizona State University.  He also is Foundation Professor of Politics and Global Studies.  As one of the leading experts on S&T affairs in China, he has served as an adviser and consultant to the World Bank, UN, OECD, US Congress, and National Academy of Sciences as well as numerous multinational companies regarding the structure and operation of the Chinese R&D system. 

Editor of krebsonsecurity.com, a daily blog dedicated to in-depth Internet security news and investigation. From 1995 to 2009, Krebs was a reporter for The Washington Post, where he covered Internet security, cybercrime and privacy issues for the newspaper and the Web site. Krebs's blog has won numerous awards, including the honor of "Blog That Best Represents the Security Industry" two years in row at the RSA Security Conference. A frequent speaker on cybercrime topics, Krebs holds a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from George Mason University, and lives with his wife just outside of Washington, D.C.

Vice-Provost for International Strategic Initiatives

Lawrence Badash Memorial Lecture Series

Assistant Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies

Assistant Professor, History of Science

Director, NSF Center for Nanotechnology in Society; Research Executive Committee & IRG Leader, NSF/EPA Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology; Associate Professor of Feminist Studies, Anthropology, & Sociology.

Assistant Professor of History

Research Professor in Sociology

Dept of Development Studies, Universidad Autonoma de Zacatecas, Mexico

Latin American Nanotechnology & Society Network (ReLANS)

Head of Division of Agricultural Research Systems Management Policies

John Gastil is Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Washington where he teaches small group decision making, political deliberation, inter-cultural communication, theory development, and public scholarship. His research centers on political communication and deliberation with vectors to group decision-making, civic engagement, public opinion and attitudes, elections, and governance.

Chancellor's Professor of History

Dr. Fred Block is Professor of Sociology at UC Davis. His current
research focuses on what he terms “stealth industrial policy” - the
ways in which the U.S. government actively supports leading-edge
technology sectors, despite the prevailing belief that technological and
industrial advances are best left to market forces. He has authored
numerous books including The Vampire State and Other Myths and
Fallacies About the U.S. Economy; Postindustrial Possibilities: A
Critique of Economic Discourse; and The Mean Season: Attack on the
Welfare State. He currently serves on the editorial board of Politics and
Society.Studies in Comparative International Development, and has
been elected to the Sociological Research Association.