Dr. Ryan Burns
AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow
Directorate of Computer and Information Science and Engineering
Division of Information and Intelligent Systems
Class of 2023-2024

Dr. Ryan Burns is an interdisciplinary geographer working at the intersection of the computational and social sciences, with interests in the social, political, and economic implications of new technologies. He is an Associate Professor at University of Calgary (Canada), Visiting Professor at University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (Germany), and a Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. He is currently Associate Editor of GeoJournal, and holds Editorial Board positions with Digital Geography & Society, ACME: International Journal of Critical Geographies, and Frontiers in Big Data. He is the current Vice-Chair of the Digital Geographies Specialty Group of the American Association of Geographers.

Past projects have looked at the use of crowdsourcing and social media for humanitarian work, and open data and smart cities. His current project investigates the digitalization of the oil and gas industries and what that means for work and workers as more of the tasks are relocated to distant urban centers. This work has been published in over 50 articles and book chapters, presented in 10 countries, and has informed public policy from the community association scale to the international scale. Burns is also a decorated teacher and mentor and regularly organizes study abroad programs as well as experiential learning with local organizations.