John Seely Brown

John Seely Brown, formerly the Chief Scientist of the Xerox Corporation and Director of its Palo Alto Research Center, is a prolific writer, lecturer, and thinker on issues related to the information age.  With a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and physics from Brown University and a doctorate in computer and communications sciences from the University of Michigan, Dr. Brown has spent his career examining how technology impacts and changes the society.

While at Xerox’s PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), he expanded the role of corporate research to include such topics as organizational learning, sociological studies in the workplace, and complex adaptive systems. His personal research interests include the digital culture, ubiquitous computing, and organizational and individual learning.

He is the co-author of the highly acclaimed book, The Social Life of Information. He is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Association of Artificial Intelligence.  He holds honorary degrees from Brown University and the London Business School.  He serves on numerous boards of directors, including Corning, Polycom, and Varian Medical Systems.  Dr. Brown has published over 100 papers in scientific journals.

Dr. Brown describes himself as “part scientist, part artist, and part strategist.”  His views are distinguished by the range of human contexts in which technologies operate and a healthy skepticism about whether or not change always represents genuine progress.