Reed D. Riner, PhD  

BA, MA, PhD, University of Colorado 1977

Personal website 

Specialty areas

• cultural anthropology
• futures research
• applied anthropology

Biography

Dr. Reed D. Riner is a cultural anthropologist with primary emphasis in anticipatory anthropology, the application of anthropological methods and theory to better understanding of how cultural systems predispose people to think - or not think - about the future, and how people can act, applying anthropology, to attain more preferable futures. 

Currently, he is involved in three projects: developing a curriculum of three futures courses at Freshman, Junior and Masters levels;  the analysis of  the 15-yr NAU Mars Base and Solar System Simulation course, and the reconstruction and reactivation of the Flagstaff Tomorrow website - the cumulative product primarily of the ANT 547 Futures Research seminar with community oriented projects which have been conducted increasingly in conjunction with the local civic organization, Friends of Flagstaff’s Future. 

Riner was recently one of three pre-publication reviewers of The World Ahead: An Anthropologist Anticipates the Future by Margaret Mead; edited and with an Introduction and Commentaries by Robert B. Textor, Professor Emeritus, Stanford University, (Volume 6, Margaret Mead: The Study of Contemporary Western Culture).

As a former editor of Cultural Futures Research, Riner is a member of the World Future Society, an officer in the Futures Studies Federation and the annual Contact Conference, and a member of the editorial board of Journal of Futures Studies: Epistemology, Methods, Applied and Alternative Futures.  He is also a member of the American Anthropological Association, a Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology, a member and Past President of the High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology.