ISGP STAFF
Dr. George H. Atkinson,
Director
The professional career of Dr. Atkinson spans several diverse arenas. His academic experience includes classroom and graduate teaching, scientific research, and administration while in the private sector he launched a new high-technology sensor development company serving the semiconductor industry.
In the U.S. government, Dr. Atkinson served in several capacities as a science and technology (S&T) adviser including as the Science and Technology Adviser to U.S. Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. In January 2008, Dr. Atkinson launched the new Institute on Science for Global Policy (ISGP).
The ISGP is focused on balancing the urgency of addressing immediate S&T challenges with the patience to accurately incorporate emerging and “at-the-horizon” S&T advances in into longerterm policies. The structure, security, and prosperity of our “knowledge-based” societies are increasingly dependent on the success our institutions have in meeting these complex and competing challenges. As ISGP Director, Dr. Atkinson seeks to create a new type of international forum in which governmental and societal decision-makers routinely obtain a scientifically objective understanding of the S&T (existing, emerging, and “at-the-horizon”) critical to public policy decisions. These are the S&T issues that can be reasonably anticipated to shape the increasingly global societies of the 21st century.