Michael Shellenberger

Michael Shellenberger serves as the CBR Chair of Politics, Censorship, and Free Speech at the University of Austin. A prominent public intellectual and best-selling author, he leads initiatives examining historical and contemporary speech suppression through technological, political, and cultural lenses to foster responsible free expression in pluralistic societies.

His research critically analyzes censorship mechanisms and progressive policy failures in urban governance, particularly regarding homelessness, drug policy, and crime. He investigates how identity-based victim narratives undermine civic order while advocating for evidence-based environmental solutions that prioritize human flourishing over alarmism. His work bridges political journalism, urban sociology, and free speech advocacy with rigorous empirical analysis.

Shellenberger actively shapes public discourse through testimony before governmental bodies worldwide and high-impact investigative reporting. He has exposed systemic issues including San Francisco's supervised drug consumption sites, FBI misinformation regarding the Hunter Biden laptop, and climate policy pseudoscience, establishing himself as a pivotal voice in contemporary debates on civil liberties and urban governance.