Advisory Board

Hank Pellissier, MA

Hank Pellissier, MA is Managing Director of the Institute for Ethics in Emerging Technology.
 
He authored Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so High? — Scientific Factors that Influence Intelligence and Invent Utopia Now: Transhumanist Suggestions for the Pre-Singularity Era.
 
Hank’s written dozens of often-controversial futurist articles for IEET, H+ Magazine, the World Future Society, and other publications, occasionally under his nom de plume, “Hank Hyena”. He lectured at the H+ Summit in Harvard on “Global Transhumanism”, and coauthored the “Extropist Manifesto”.
 
A journalist, Hank is a frequent contributor to GreatSchools.org where he writes about brain functionality and education. He’s also a blogger for the world Future Society. Past work includes a weekly column entitled “Local Intelligence” for the New York Times / Bay Citizen, a daily column for Salon.com (“Naked World”), two weekly columns for SfGate.com (“Urban Animal” and “Odd Barkings”), and a monthly column for SF Metropolitan (“Frisco Utopia”), plus numerous features.
 
Hank is founder/director of two nonprofit organizations, the Hyena Comedy Institute — where he trained stand-ups and produced 80+ shows — and The Kids’ Co-op Inc., a nonprofit that launched two SF preschools and donated funds, food, and school supplies to ten foreign locales, primarily the Philippines, where seven hectares of agricultural land were purchased to enable a Mangyan tribal village to self-subsist.
 
In the 1990’s he was an edgy comic monologuist; the SF Chronicle labeled him, “San Francisco’s performance art bad boy”. His poetry is anthologized in The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, he’s been a SF Poetry Slam co-champion, and his performance pieces have toured eleven states and six international countries. As an events producer, he instigated the SF DADA Festival, the SF Buddhist Festival, the Bay Area Muslim Performance Festival, the world’s first Atheist Film Festival, and North Beach Street Utopia.
 
Hank earned his BA in History and his MA in Humanities/Religious Studies. He enjoys forecasting trends, illustrating scenarios, and propounding solutions. His hobbies include traveling and exercising with his triathlete wife and two hyperactive daughters, but mostly, he prefers to just research, write, and argue online with readers who dispute his essay’s contentions. He’s available for writing assignments and speaking engagements.
 
Read his blog. View his Facebook page. Read his LinkedIn profile. Follow his Twitter feed.