Welcome to my personal home page. I’m a professor at George Mason’s School of Public Policy, where I have two overlapping areas of specialization. One is technology, science, and innovation policy. I’m interested in the sources and implications of discoveries and inventions of all sorts, past and present. I am the director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy. The other area is governance, at the regional, national, and global levels. I want to understand the processes by which policy-makers decide what to do. The two areas come together as I seek to comprehend how states, markets, individuals, and social groups interact to produce decisions about important new technological capabilities.

On this site, you’ll find information about my teaching, publications, research interests, and service activities.  I welcome contacts from scholars, students, and policy practitioners.

What’s New:

In August 2012, I completed a year of service to the nation as assistant director for innovation policy at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.  My work for the Administration focused on advanced manufacturing policy, including the proposed National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI)  and the Additive Manufacturing Pilot, based in Youngstown OH.   On December 12, 2012, I released a paper, co-written with colleagues from the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, on “Why America Needs NNMI” at a Capitol Hill event.  The President’s 2013 State of the Union address featured the NNMI proposal and announced the creation of three more Institutes.  I discussed the proposal on NPR’s “On Point with Tom Ashbrook” on February 25, 2013 (podcast here).

Unlocking Energy Innovation:  How America Can Build a Low-Cost, Low-Carbon Energy System (with Richard K. Lester) was published by MIT Press.  The Bipartisan Policy Center hosted our roll-out event in February 2012.  In March 2013, I gave the inaugural lecture in Clarkson University’s Power and Energy Forum.

I moderated a panel on the future of U.S. immigration policy at the Brookings Institution in July 2012.   Brookings released my policy brief (co-written with GMU colleague Zoltan J. Acs) on high-tech immigrant entrepreneurs at an event in February 2011.

The Northern Virginia Clean Energy Economy Report, written with Ph.D. students Morghan Transue and Inkyoung Sun, was published on-line in July 2011.

My chapter on Hong Kong’s human resources policy, with Ph.D. student Fangmeng Tian, was published in Innovation Policy and the Limits of Laissez Faire, edited by Douglas B. Fuller (Palgrave MacMillan 2010).

You can find my full c.v. here.