Kenneth Oye

Kenneth Oye holds a joint appointment in Political Science and Engineering Systems, with research and teaching on international relations, political economy and technology policy. His books include Cooperation under Anarchy, Economic Discrimination and Political Exchange, and the “Eagle” monographs on American foreign policy. His recent studies on technology policy has been published in Science, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Politics and the Life Sciences and Issues in Science and Technology. He serves as director of the MIT Program on Emerging Technologies (PoET), as a member of the MIT Synthetic Biology Center and the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation, and as Director of Policy and Practices for NSF SynBERC. In the past several years, he has served as an invited expert to the UN BWC, the WHO, PCAST and the National Research Council. Professor Oye is a recipient of the Levitan Award for Excellence in Teaching (2011), the Graduate Council Teaching Award (1998) and the Technology and Policy Program Faculty Appreciation Award (2003). Before coming to MIT, he taught at Harvard, the University of California, Princeton and Swarthmore. He holds a BA in Economics and Political Science from Swarthmore with Highest Honors and a PhD in political science from Harvard with the Chase Dissertation Prize.

He has published six books on international relations, including Cooperation under Anarchy and Economic Discrimination and Political Exchange. His current research applies theories and methods from political economy to problems of science and technology policy, with emphasis on appraising market and nonmarket institutions and processes in light of uncertainty over risks, benefits, and interests. His current project on adaptive regulation combines retrospective case studies on environmental, health, safety and security risks with the experimental application of case based theories to two current policy areas. He has partnered with the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation, payers, sponsors, regulators from EMA and FDA and the White House on development of adaptive approaches to pharmaceuticals licensing. He has partnered with the Smithsonian Wilson Center, NSF, EPA, UNBWC and WHO, biotech firms and NGOs to improve assessment and management of risks associated with synthetic biology. His other current projects focus on uses of compensation to rectify distributional consequences of reforms and on credible assessment of scientific and technical knowledge in areas of uncertainty, complexity and controversy.