John Seely Brown

John Seely Brown is a visiting scholar and advisor to the provost at the University of Southern California (USC) and the independent co-chairman of Deloitte’s Center for the Edge. Previously he was chief scientist of Xerox Corporation and director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC)—a position he held for nearly two decades. While head of PARC, Brown expanded the role of corporate research to include such areas as the management of radical innovation, organizational learning, complex adaptive systems, and nanotechnologies. He was a co-founder of the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL). He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Education, and a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence. He is also a trustee of the MacArthur Foundation and serves on numerous public and private boards. He has published over 100 papers in scientific journals and is author or co-author of four books. Brown received a BA in mathematics and physics from Brown University, and a PhD in computer and communication sciences from the University of Michigan. He has received six honorary degrees—from Brown University, London Business School, Claremont Graduate University, University of Michigan, North Carolina State University, and Illinois Institute of Technology.