Bina Venkataraman

Bina Venkataraman is an American author, journalist, and science policy expert. She is currently the inaugural Columnist of the Future at The Washington Post and a fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. Her first book, The Optimist’s Telescope: Thinking Ahead in a Reckless Age (Riverhead), was named a top business book by The Financial Times and a best book of 2019 by Amazon, Science Friday, and National Public Radio. From 2019-2022, Bina served as Editorial Page Editor of The Boston Globe, the youngest in its 150-year history, overseeing the news organization’s opinion coverage and editorial board during two presidential impeachment trials, the 2020 election, the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, the Capitol insurrection, and Boston’s historic 2021 mayoral election. During her tenure, the Globe had two Pulitzer finalists for editorial writing. She previously served as a senior climate adviser in the Obama White House and shaped U.S. science and technology policy, including the Ebola epidemic response, as the former director of global policy initiatives at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and as the chief policy advisor to PCAST under President Obama . Bina gave the closing talk at TED 2019 and is a frequent public speaker whose appearances have included CNN, MSNBC, the Aspen Ideas Festival, and the University of Southern California’s 2021 Commencement. She teaches in the program on science, technology, & society at MIT and at the Harvard Kennedy School. You can follow her column here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/bina-venkataraman/?itid=ai_top_binav

future generations, nonrectangular tables, open-water swimming, the 2016 NBA finals

we are not doomed

Blackjack, blazing trails with a machete, being bartender to the mob. (Also I’m really bad at whiffleball, sewing, and driving a motorcycle in traffic.)