Neil Jacobstein, Chairman

Neil Jacobstein has been Chairman of the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing since 1992. Jacobstein has been the principal co-author of the Foresight Guidelines for Nanotechnology Development, which asserts that self-replicating molecular nanotechnology:

1. is theoretically feasible in spite of recent pronouncements otherwise,
2. may take decades to develop,
3. will eventually have significant social and economic benefits as well as risks, and
4. should be pursued responsibly with appropriate controls and built-in safeguards.

Jacobstein is also President and CEO of Teknowledge Corporation, a 25-year-old knowledge systems software company. He has been a technical consultant on R&D projects for: NSF, DARPA, NASA, NIH, EPA, DOE, NRO, GM, Ford, P&G, Boeing, Applied Materials, and many other companies.

Jacobstein was the Chairman of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence’s 17th Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence conference in 2005.

He became a Senior Research Fellow in the Digital Vision Program at Stanford University in 2006.

In 1999, he became a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, and he has led 8 Socrates seminars there on the opportunities and risks of advanced technologies, including nanotechnology.

He received his BS in Environmental Sciences, Summa cum Laude from the University of Wisconsin, and an MS in Human Ecology from the University of Texas, in conjunction with NASA’s Environmental Physiology Simulation Program.

Jacobstein was a Graduate Research Intern in the Learning Research Group at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, and was a consultant in PARC’s Software Concepts Group.

He spent four years at the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems doing renewable energy research and co-directing a genetic toxicology lab.

Jacobstein served on the Technology Advisory Board for the U.S. Army’s Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation Command (STRICOM). He is a member of the AAAS, the IEEE, the AAAI, and the ACM.