Richard Harper

Richard Harper is Professor and Co-Director of the Institute for Social Futures at Lancaster University, examining how technologies shape human experience and vice versa. With 28 patents and 20 books including IEEE award-winning The Myth of the Paperless Office, he explores human-computer interaction through interdisciplinary frameworks.

Leadership: Founded Caltech's Kavli Nanoscience Institute (2003-2006) and leads EPSRC-funded Future Places Centre examining relationships between people, places, and technology representations. Currently on sabbatical developing instrumentation for deep proteomic profiling.

Research Focus: Current projects examine nanodevice applications in physics, neuroscience, and proteomics; neurotechnology development; and AI's cultural/organizational roles. Forthcoming book The Shape of Thought (2025) critically examines AI capabilities through historical and human-computer research lenses.

Honors: Fellow of Royal Society of Arts, IET, and ACM SIG-CHI Academy; 2022 IISI-EUSSET Lifetime Achievement Award; Visiting Professorships at Swansea University and KTH Royal Institute of Technology.