We are excited to announce Professor Dominic Boyer (Anthropology, Rice University) will be the keynote speaker at the 2026 Kunshan Workshop. His talk, scheduled for Friday, June 19, will be open to all registered attendees.
Dominic Boyer is an anthropologist, media maker and co-founder of the field of Energy Humanities.
His current research foci include (1) the politics of energy transition and decarbonization; (2) green infrastructure; environmental justice and civil power; and (3) climate adaptation in coastal cities.
In addition to serving on the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association and the Board of Governors of the Rice Sustainability Institute, he directs the Social Design Lab (SDL).
Working together with Cymene Howe, their design for the world’s first glacier memorial was named a Finalist for a 2020 Beazley Design of the Year Award by the London Design Museum. The same project inspired The Economist to create its first-ever obituary for a non-human.
Professor Boyer’s recent research has been supported by the US National Science Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Berggruen Institute, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. He is a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow for a project titled “Electric Futures.”
Professor Boyer’s latest book is No More Fossils (U Minnesota Press, 2023), an analysis of the fossil gerontocracy that seeks to hold us in its ecocidal grasp and the coming transition from petroculture to electroculture.
