The breathtaking pace of technological process is evident across many landscapes: video from Mars, maps of the ocean floor, handheld devices that grow in power as they shrink in size. What is not so evident is how this pace affects areas of our lives not usually associated with technology, and how our daily interaction with emerging technology shapes our world and our perception.

Beginning Thursday, Oct. 25, ASU Professor Gary Marchant will bring man’s relationship with technology into clear, fascinating focus with his series “Emerging Technologies Transforming Your Life and Society: Social, Ethical and Legal Dimensions.”

Offered on consecutive Thursday afternoons, each of the four sessions of “Emerging Technologies” takes on a different facet of life. Marchant will address not only how our experiences in these areas have been fundamentally altered by technological progress, but how that progress will transform society even more radically in the not-at-all distant future.

Session 1: Health (Oct. 25)
Session 2: Relationships (Nov. 1)
Session 3: Employment (Nov. 8)
Session 4: Privacy and Security (Nov. 15)

Sally Moore, director of Presidential Engagement Programs (PEP) for the ASU Foundation for A New American University, says, “Gary Marchant is uniquely qualified to lead participants on this journey into our future. They simply will not believe the changes in store for all of us until they hear Professor Marchant describe them and predict the directions they will take us.”

“Emerging Technologies” will be presented Thursdays, Oct. 25–Nov. 15 from 1–3 p.m. in Exploration Room No. 341 at ASU SkySong, 1475 North Scottsdale Road in Scottsdale. Cost for the series of four lectures is $160, and includes parking. Information and reservations are available by contacting Sally Moore at 480-965-4814 or sally.moore@asu.edu.

Gary Marchant is a Regents’ Professor and the Lincoln Professor of Emerging Technologies, Law and Ethics at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. He is also faculty director of the ASU Center for Law, Science and Innovation, professor of life sciences and a senior sustainability scientist in the Global Institute of Sustainability at ASU. Professor Marchant has a doctorate in genetics from the University of British Columbia, a master’s in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government, and a juris doctorate from Harvard Law School. Prior to joining the ASU faculty in 1999 he was a partner in the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm Kirkland & Ellis where his practice focused on regulatory issues. Marchant teaches and researches in the subject areas of environmental law; risk assessment and risk management; genetics and the law; biotechnology law; food and drug law; legal aspects of nanotechnology; and law, science and technology.