William Burns

William Burns has almost 20 years of experience in science and technology policy at the intersection of health, environment, food, and sustainable energy. His original training was a PhD in malaria biochemistry followed by an MSc in science communication. More recently, he studied the history of science, technology, and medicine as a Hans Rausing Scholar in Imperial College, London. He worked for nearly a decade in a learned society and in the UK Energy Research Centre where he was part of a small team promoting uptake of knowledge and evidence in Whitehall and Brussels, mainly concerned with decarbonization, sustainability, pollution control, and public health. He is interested in the intersection of technology and society and how we might shape it for the better, as well as how history and path dependency determine current decision-making.