MAXXI & SONY CSL Paris
Ilan Chabay
Adjunct Professor, Arizona State University
Ilan Chabay is an adjunct professor in the School for Sustainability of Arizona State University and Head of Strategic Science Initiatives and Programs at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam Germany. At IASS, he is also Scientific Project Leader of the Global Sustainability Strategy Forum (GSSF) conducted in collaboration with ASU and head of the KLASICA (Knowledge, Learning, and Societal Change) international research alliance. The KLASICA alliance, which Ilan founded and has led since 2008, conducts transdisciplinary research into collective behavior change and seeks to expand and strengthen commitment of communities and individuals to fostering change to just and equitable sustainable futures in their respective cultures and contexts. A particular focus of KLASICA is understanding the sources and contexts of digital and analog narrative expressions of future visions and social identities and their influence on collective behavior change on pathways to sustainable futures.
Ilan’s first career was as research scientist and professor in laser physics and chemistry at US National Institutes of Standards and Technology and at Stanford Univ. He became associate director of The Exploratorium Science Museum in San Francisco, then founder and for 18 years president of an innovative company in Silicon Valley designing and producing interactive exhibitions for 230 museums around the world, including Disney, Smithsonian, and NASA.
His current career (his third, so far) in social science began in 2006 as Hasselblad Professor in the sociology and applied IT departments at Univ. of Gothenburg and Chalmers Univ. in Sweden, before coming to IASS in 2012. In addition to his research and more than 80 publications in both natural and social sciences, he continues to design games to engage and inspire people with authentic processes of scientific inquiry that enhance understanding, agency and commitment for moving to just and equitable sustainable futures.
