Rate My Professor Cynthia Selin

Cynthia Selin is a Social Science professor at Arizona State University, where she holds the position of Associate Professor in the School for the Future of Innovation in Society and the School of Sustainability since 2017. She founded and directed the Center for the Study of Futures at ASU from 2016 to 2023. Selin earned her PhD in Knowledge and Management from Copenhagen Business School in 2006 with a dissertation on Volatile Visions: Transactions in Anticipatory Knowledge. She previously obtained an MA in Science and Technology Studies from Roskilde University and Maastricht University in 2000, focusing on Professional Dreamers: The Art and Science of Scenario Planning, and a BA in American Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1996. Her academic career at ASU spans from 2006, starting as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Center for Nanotechnology in Society, advancing to Assistant Research Professor at the Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes, Assistant Professor in the School of Sustainability and CSPO, and Faculty Affiliate in the School of Public Affairs from 2011 to 2014. Beyond ASU, she served as a Marie Curie Fellow and Visiting Scientist at the Technical University of Denmark from 2013 to 2015, and has been an Associate Fellow at the Saïd Business School, University of Oxford since 2013, contributing as core faculty in the Oxford Scenarios Programme. She was also a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto in 2010.

Selin's research centers on foresight methodologies, scenario planning, anticipatory governance, and public engagement with emerging technologies, including nanotechnology, human genome editing, climate change adaptation, renewable energy, synthetic biology, and urban sustainability. Her publications include books such as A Year Without a Winter (Columbia University Press, 2019), Presenting Futures: Yearbook of Nanotechnology in Society (Springer, 2008, co-edited), and Volatile Visions: Transactions in Anticipatory Knowledge (Samfundslitteratur, 2006). Notable peer-reviewed articles encompass 'Seven open questions in the futures of human genome editing' (Futures, 2023), 'Toward anticipatory governance of human genome editing: a critical review of scholarly governance discourse' (Journal of Responsible Innovation, 2021), 'Experiments in Engagement: Designing PEST for Capacity Building' (Public Understanding of Science, 2017), 'Scenarios and Design: Scoping the Dialogue Space' (Futures, 2015), and 'Expectations and the Emergence of Nanotechnology' (Science, Technology & Human Values, 2007). Her scholarship has been cited over 3,600 times according to Google Scholar. Awards and honors include the Arizona State University President’s Award for Sustainability (2011) for The Future of Phoenix project, EC Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship (2014, $400K), British Academy of Management Education Practice Award (2017), and Olga Amsterdamska Award (2018) for contributions to Remaking Participation: Science, Environment and Emergent Publics.