FUTURING: THE EXPLORATION OF THE FUTURE

Edward Cornish is the founder of the World Future Society and editor of its flagship publication, THE FUTURIST magazine.

Mr. Cornish has been a student and proponent of futures studies for nearly five decades. He became interested in the impact of science and technology on human life while working as a National Geographic magazine science writer in the late 1950s. In 1966, he published a six-page newsletter consisting of brief reports on books and activities related to the future. Favorable response encouraged him to contemplate an association for people interested in forecasts and social and technological change. The World Future Society was officially launched in October 1966 with the support of comprehensive designer Buckminster Fuller, Nobel Prize winning chemist Glenn T. Seaborg, former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman, and many other futurist thinkers. The first issue of THE FUTURIST appeared in early 1967.

As a futurist, he has served as an advisor for three U.S. presidents, co-authored a report by the White House’s National Goals Research Staff, and served as chief investigator of future studies for the National Science Foundation and the Library of Congress. Mr. Cornish penned "Your Changing World," a weekly syndicated column, from 1984 to 1986.

Mr. Cornish is the author of The Study of the Future: An Introduction to the Art and Science of Understanding and Shaping Tomorrow’s World (1977) and has written and edited many publications for the World Future Society. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.