Bob Beard

Bob Beard is a United States Marine Corps veteran, first-generation college graduate, and PhD student in the Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology program at Arizona State University.

In his role as senior program manager at ASU’s Center for Science and the Imagination, he produces content, programming, exhibitions, and experiences at the intersection of science, humanities, and public imagination. With more than two decades of hands-on media production and research in communication, advocacy, and participatory culture, he works to create accessible, collaborative spaces to explore personal and organizational futures.

He is co-editor of the book Imagining Transmedia (MIT Press, 2024), and the creator and principal investigator of the Veterans Imagination Project, a research-based intervention designed to improve the experience of military-to-civilian transition with the tools of speculative fiction and strategic narrative foresight.

His past projects include Frankenstein200, an educational transmedia experience supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation; Future Visions 2071, a collection of stories and art exhibited at the Smithsonian Institution’s Arts and Industries Building; and PBS Nerd, a national brand and outreach campaign developed for public television stations across the United States.