Lori Andrews

Lori Andrews, a distinguished professor of law at IIT Chicago-Kent and director of IIT’s Institute for Science, Law and Technology, will speak on the topic of “The Effects of Patent Law on the Past, Present, and Future of Innovation” on Friday, April 11, 2014 at 1 pm in the Hermann Union Building. This event will be part of an interdisciplinary conference hosted by the Benjamin Franklin Project at IIT. The conference, “Infrastructures of Creativity: Institutions and Innovation in the 18th and 21st Centuries,” will consider today’s innovation landscape alongside that of the Atlantic Enlightenment, which was a period of remarkable innovation and creativity. Over the course of the two days, we will explore the types of institutional infrastructures and intellectual processes that foster or, alternatively, hinder innovation.

Andrews is an internationally recognized expert on emerging technologies. Her most recent book is titled, “I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did: Social Networks and the Death of Privacy” (2012). She has created a Social Network Constitution. Her path-breaking litigation about technologies caused the National Law Journal to list her as one of the “100 Most Influential Lawyers in America.” Andrews has been involved in setting policies for genetic technologies. She has been an adviser on genetic and reproductive technology to Congress, the World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal Department of Health and Human Services, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and several foreign nations, including the emirate of Dubai and the French National Assembly. Her media appearances include “Nightline” and “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and virtually every major program in between. Andrews is the author of 11 nonfiction books and more than 150 articles on biotechnology, genetics and social networks. She is also the author of three mysteries involving a fictional geneticist: Sequence (2006), The Silent Assassin (2007) and Immunity (2008).

All IIT students, faculty, staff, and alumni are invited to attend Professor Andrews’ talk, as well as all other keynote events. For a full list of conference events and more details, visit the conference website.