Eric Drexler

Eric Drexler is a researcher concerned with emerging technologies and their consequences for the future. This interest led him to initiate studies in the field of molecular nanotechnology -- an anticipated technology based on molecular machines able to build objects to complex atomic specifications. The possibilities he has identified include molecular manufacturing systems able to construct computers smaller than living cells, devices able to repair cells, diamond-based structural materials, and additional molecular manufacturing systems. He lectures on nanotechnology to a wide variety of technical and business audiences.

 He has authored a series of journal articles on nanotechnology and three books, including Engines of Creation (Doubleday, 1986) and Unbounding the Future (Morrow, 1991, with Chris Peterson and Gayle Pergamit), that describe the prospects ahead and some strategies for dealing with them. His most recent book, Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing and Computation (Wiley-Interscience, 1992), describes the principles and mechanisms of molecular nanotechnology. It won the annual Association of American Publishers award for best computer science book. In May 1993, Dr. Drexler won the Kilby Young Innovator Award, named for Jack Kilby, inventor of the integrated circuit.

 To help in coping with the opportunities and dangers presented by this new field, he founded the M.I.T. Nanotechnology Study Group and now serves as Chairman of the Foresight Institute, a nonprofit educational organization founded to help prepare for advanced technologies. In spring 1988 he taught (while a Visiting Scholar at Stanford University) the first formal course on nanotechnology and exploratory engineering. He chaired the First Foresight Conference on Nanotechnology in October 1989, chaired the second in November 1991 (sponsored by Stanford University's Department of Materials Science and Engineering, the University of Tokyo's Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, and the Foresight Institute), and co-chaired the third in 1993.
 

Dr. Drexler received an S.B. degree from M.I.T. in Interdisciplinary Science, an S.M. degree from M.I.T. in Engineering (while a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellow), and a Ph.D. from M.I.T. in Molecular Nanotechnology. He has published papers and articles for periodicals ranging from Smithsonian to the CoEvolution Quarterly to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Formerly a Research Affiliate of the M.I.T. Space Systems Laboratory and the M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, he is currently a Research Fellow of the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing. He has served on the Board of Directors of the National Space Society and is a member of the American Vacuum Society, the Protein Society, and the American Chemical Society.