Dr. Natasha Vita-More

Natasha Vita-More, Ph.D., MPhil, MSc, is the Founder of 4-ENCORE, Professor and Graduate Department Chair at the University of Advancing Technology, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for the Future Mind at FAU, Expert Speaker at Digital University, Faculty at Geneva College of Longevity Science, Scientific Advisory Board Member at Lifespan.io, and Board Member at Beneficial AGI. She is a Transhumanism Visionary, Designer of the First Future Human Prototype, and Pioneer in Radical Life Extension.

Her general research focuses on the questions humanity is facing today that are impacting our future — AI, nanomedicine, human enhancement, and healthy longevity. Natasha examines the role of technology, society, and the design of human interactions, including the practice and theory of human enhancement and the ethics of emerging technologies.

While her scientific research breakthrough achieved the first known evidence of the persistence of long-term memory of simple animals in the cryobiology protocols of vitrification, specifically in C. elegans, she is not a seasoned scientist but more of an innovator who produces projects, one of which was a scientific breakthrough.

Read Pioneering Transhumanism: a conversation with Natasha Vita-More. Watch A Journey Through Life Extension | Deep Interview with Natasha Vita More and What Makes Personal Identity Continue?

Natasha innovated the theory of Ageless Thinking and she developed university courses on the future of AI and pioneered a whole-body prototype in 1996 known as Primo Posthuman in combining AI, nanorobotics, and prosthetics, including the Metabrain. Watch Body by design – An iteration for life: Natasha Vita-More at TEDxMünchenSalon, Radical Life Extension | Natasha Vita-More, and What Exactly is Transhumanism?

She helped to spearhead a cultural movement that was the first philosophy on humanity’s future. She writes about the cultural, philosophical, and socio-political issues concerning what it means to be human and an awareness of our trajectory that requires us to reflect on where we are headed.

Her study examines who or what will govern our future, how we can strategize existential threats and assess the scope of AI and supercomputers, build awareness of cybersecurity, and protect our human rights.

In 2024, Natasha Founded 4-ENCORE, a project about Rethinking and Reframing 4 key lifestyle routines for longevity: engage in exercise, nourish with nutrition, cultivate connections, optimize rest, and execute with excellence.

Previously, she was Executive Director at Humanity Plus, between 2018 and 2024. Humanity+ is a 501(c)3 international nonprofit membership organization that advocates the ethical use of technology and evidence-based science. Humanity+ is the first global educational organization to address advances in AI, issues of existential risks, security and encryption, society, and the future.

Between 2012 and 2020, Natasha was Department Chair and Professor of Technology, Innovation, and Ethics at the University of Advancing Technology. Her research on human futures contributed to the Humanities, Ethics, Philosophy, and Futures Studies departments.

In 2010, Natasha Founded the Center for Transhumanist Studies and between 2010 and 2012, she was an Advisor at Singularity University.

From 2000 until 2006, Natasha was the President of the Extropy Institute. The Institute was a networking ideas exchange devoted to developing strategies for the future. Extropy is a symbol of continued progress and reflects the extent of a living or organizational system’s intelligence, functional order, vitality, and capacity and drive for improvement. Extropy is an essential element of transhumanism.

With over two dozen articles in academic books and journals, her writings have established future scenarios used by business. She has appeared in more than two dozen televised documentaries and has been featured in numerous newspaper and magazine articles.

Wired magazine called Natasha an “early adopter of revolutionary ideas” and Village Voice said she is a “role model for super-longevity”. Ray Kurzweil stated Natasha is a “Highly regarded thinker on life extension and impacts on society.” Early on, she minted “radical life extension” as an alternative phrase to anti-aging and life extension in foreseeing AI and nanorobotics as next-stage medicine for healthy longevity.

She is a member of the Association of Professional Futurists, founder of Transhumanist Arts & Culture, Honorary Vice-Chair of the World Transhumanist Association, Senior Associate with the Foresight Institute, and advisor to the Alcor Life Extension Foundation. She was the Outreach Director of The First Conference on Artificial General Intelligence.

Natasha authored the Extropic Art Manifesto. In October of 1997, the Manifesto was sent into space on board the Cassini Huygens spacecraft. It is the first writing of transhumanism to leave the Earth and travel through the Asteroid Belt to Saturn. By this, the meme “We are transhumans …” has spread far beyond Earth, out into the Solar System.

The themes of Natasha’s art identify the cultural vanguard and epitomize changing values that bolster the spirit of our times. Her innovative works have been honored at Women in Video, the Moscow Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, United States Film Festival, London Contemporary Museum, and Brooks Memorial Museum. Natasha continues to work to develop education and innovation.

Natasha earned her Bachelor’s Degree of Fine Arts in 1973 at the University of Memphis and was a Visiting Scholar working on her Master’s Degree of Arts in Performance Art at Accademia Belle Arti, Italy in 1977. After returning to the United States, she started a commercial design firm in Telluride, Colorado.

She completed Paralegal Certification for Litigation, Tort Law, and Corporate Law from Blackstone School of Law in 1992.

In 2002, she earned her Certification as a Sports Nutritionist and Personal Trainer from the American Muscle and Fitness Institute.

She earned her Master’s Degree of Science in Future Studies from the Faculty of Social Sciences, College of Technology, University of Houston in 2006 and her Master’s Degree of Philosophy at the Faculty of Technology, School of Computers, Communications and Electronics, School of Communications and Media Studies from the University of Plymouth in 2008 with her Master thesis Designing Transitional Human Futures.

In 2012, Natasha earned her Ph.D. at the School of Media Arts, Design and Architecture, Planetary Collegium, University of Plymouth, England with her Doctorate thesis Life Expansion: Toward A Theory of Artistic and Design-Based Approaches to the Transhuman / Posthuman.

She has been featured on BBC, Dateline, PBS, TLC, and Discovery, appeared on national talk shows, and featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Wired, Shift, Mean Magazine, Forbes, LA Weekly, Harper’s Bazaar, and Marie Claire.

Natasha is an Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies Fellow, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Center for the Future Mind at Florida Atlantic University, Expert Speaker at Digital University, Member of the International Longevity Alliance, and Member of Longevity Nation.

She authored Create / Recreate: the 3rd Millennial Culture on the emerging cybernetic culture and the future of humanism and the arts and sciences. She is also the author of TRANSHUMANISM: What is it? concerning the basic questions of the Transhumanist philosophical, ethical, and cultural worldview.

She is the co-editor and contributing author of The Transhumanist Reader: Classical and Contemporary Essays on the Science, Technology, and Philosophy of the Human Future, the first authoritative and comprehensive survey of the origins and current state of transhumanist thinking.

Her project Primo 3M+ 2001, a future physique 3D design for superlongevity is based on nanotechnology and AI.

In 2014, she was the entrepreneur and scientific lead, together with Daniel Barranco from the Department of Cryobiology of the Spanish University of Seville, who proved for the first time that the use of cryonic technologies does not destroy the long-term memory of the simplest multicellular organisms. Read Persistence of Long-Term Memory in Vitrified and Revived Caenorhabditis elegans.

In 2019, Aging Analytics named Natasha one of the Top-50 Women Longevity Leaders. She has been the recipient of several awards, including First Place Award at Brooks Memorial Museum, Special Recognition at Women in Video, and Best Graduate Student Project of 2005 for her Futures Podcast Series at the University of Houston, Future Studies program.

Watch Max More & Natasha Vita-More on the History of Transhumanism w/ Luke Robert Mason and Beauty, Transhumanism & The Disease of Ageing.

Read H+ DAO and Transhumanism with Dr. Natasha Vita-More, The Science Surrounding Cryonics, and The Transhuman Unbounded Existence: AI, Nanorobots, and Computational Simulation.

Visit her Homepage, LinkedIn profile, Semantic Scholar profile, Google Scholar page, and Wikipedia page. Follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.