William Boone Bonvillian

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William B. Bonvillian

William Boone Bonvillian, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), is a specialist on innovation and technology policy. He is a Lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), teaching innovation policy courses in the departments of Science, Technology and Society and Political Science, and serves as a Senior Director for special projects at MIT Open Learning researching workforce education.[1][2][3][4] He was named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his work in 2011,[5] and he received the IEEE's award for distinguished public service in 2006.[6]

Education and early work[edit]

Bonvillian received a B.A. in 1969 from Columbia University,[7] an M.A.R. in 1972 from Yale University Divinity School, and a J.D. in 1974 from Columbia Law School. Following law school, he was a law clerk to federal judge Jack B. Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York. After two years of law practice, he served from 1977–81 in the Carter Administration in the U.S. Department of Transportation, becoming a Deputy Assistant Secretary for the department's legislative program working on major transportation deregulation laws and other transportation initiatives. Subsequently, he worked as a partner at two Washington law firms.[8]

Later career[edit]

In 1989, Bonvillian became chief counsel and legislative director to newly-elected U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman. Between 1989 and 2006, he worked on projects, including legislation establishing the Department of Homeland Security; reforming the national intelligence system; the Senate's first major "cap and trade" climate change legislation (the "Lieberman-McCain" bills); on innovation and science and technology policy, including the America COMPETES Act of 2007. Throughout this period, he worked extensively on defense R&D legislation and policy, including for DARPA; as an advocate of the DARPA innovation model, he backed subsequent proposals for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), for the Homeland Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (HS-ARPA) and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA).[9]

In 2006, Bonvillian became director of MIT's Washington Office, His policy initiative efforts included work on MIT's energy policy initiatives, its project on the "convergence" of the life, physical and engineering sciences, on advanced manufacturing, and on online higher education.[10] In 2007, he began teaching at MIT on innovation systems. In 2017, he stepped down from his Washington role, becoming a lecturer and researcher at MIT.[11]

Work on innovation policy[edit]

Bonvillian's work on technology issues for the U.S. Senate and at MIT provided the background for his work on innovation policy and systems. Serving on the adjunct faculty at Georgetown and at John's Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, as well as teaching at MIT, he developed and taught courses on science and technology and energy technology policy. He has written over thirty articles and book chapters on these topics, with a particular focus on the federal innovation policy role.[12]

In 2009, Bonvillian coauthored the book Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution with Charles Weiss of Georgetown's School of Foreign Service, a former chair of its Science, Technology and International Affairs Department and the first science advisor at the World Bank. Their approach called for to a new, unified, private-public energy technology strategy to foster needed energy advances. This emphasis on a technology policy was presented as a policy alternative, given that progress on a carbon pricing system faced political deadlock.[13]

Building on insights from their work on the barriers to energy technology entry from incumbent fossil fuels, Bonvillian and Weiss authored the book Technological Innovation in Legacy Sectors in 2015.The book described a systems approach to innovation, focused on overcoming two deep problems in the U.S. innovation system: expanding economic growth and raising the rate of creation of quality jobs. It introduced and developed a new concept of "Legacy sectors" – complex, established innovation-resistant economic sectors that constitute most of the economy. The book set forth a conceptual framework to address what they argued had been a neglected problem in innovation theory, of bringing disruptive innovation to these legacy sectors. It added to previous models of the dynamics and stages of innovation, including the new concepts of "extended pipeline" and "manufacturing led" innovation, focusing on the importance of the mechanics of "innovation organization" to technology advance. It identified new drivers to surmount the barriers legacy sectors create to economic growth, including the role of institutional change agents.[14]

In 2018, Bonvillian authored a book with Peter L. Singer, Advanced Manufacturing – The New American Innovation Policies. Bonvillian had served as an advisor to MIT's 2010-13 manufacturing policy initiative, "Production in the Innovation Economy," that resulted in a two-volume study.[15][16] He also served as an advisor for President Obama's Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (AMP), a consortium of industry university and government experts, that issued major reports in 2012 and 2014.[17][18] These became the basis for that administration's major technology policy initiative and led to the creation of sixteen advanced manufacturing institutes.[19][20][21] The book explored the steep decline in U.S. manufacturing, the offshoring of industrial capacity, and the drop in manufacturing employment by one-third, in the 2000-2010 period. It reviewed the origins of the policy response to this dilemma, which came to be called "advanced manufacturing." It traced how an innovation systems effort was developed to strengthen the U.S. production system and the challenges that remain for implementing this approach.

In 2020, Bonvillian, with Richard VanAtta and Patrick Windham, published a book they edited and contributed to, The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies. The book collects the leading academic research on the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), including four of his own studies. DARPA supported the development of portable GPS, voice recognition software, stealth, autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles and, most famously, the Internet[22][23] The book explored in detail the organizational models DARPA used to achieve these technology advances.

Following up on his work on manufacturing, he turned to leading research projects on workforce education at MIT at its program for Open Learning, which develops online education courses.[24][25] A book developed from that research, authored with Sanjay Sarma of MIT in 2021, Workforce Education, A New Policy Roadmap.[26][27] Focusing on manufacturing, healthcare, and retail sectors, the authors investigated programs that reimagine America's broken workforce education system, from short intensive courses that offer industry certifications to new models for apprenticeships. They examine new roles for community colleges, employers, governments, and universities in workforce education, and describe new education technologies that can deliver training to workers. They argue that building a new workforce education system will be key to improving the nation's problems with economic inequality and its need to improve productivity.

Bonvillian is also author of an historical novel, Flank Speed, on the World War II naval battles off Guadalcanal in 1942, published in 2022.[28]

Bonvillian has authored many peer-reviewed articles and book chapters that focus on topics of innovation organization, energy technology policy, advanced manufacturing, innovation in legacy economic sectors, the DARPA model, and workforce education.[29] 

Other positions, distinctions and awards[edit]

Bonvillian serves on the National Academies of Sciences' Board on Materials and Manufacturing and its standing committee for its Innovation Policy Forum [1], served a seven-year term on its Board on Science Education, and on six other Academies' committees. He chaired the standing Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy (COSEPP) at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)[2] for four years, serves on the board of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) [3] and is a member of the Babbage Policy Forum on industrial innovation policy at Cambridge University.[30] He was elected a Fellow by the AAAS in 2011 for "socially distinguished" efforts "on behalf of the advancement of science and its applications." [4] [31] He received the IEEE's distinguished public service award in 2006 for his work advancing science policy in Congress.[32][33]

References[edit]

  1. ^ MIT Subject Listing and Schedule Fall 2020, MIT Registrar's Office (September 12, 2020). "MIT Subject Listing and Fall Schedule 2020". MIT Registrar. Retrieved September 12, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ "Lecturer Bill Bonvillian". MIT J-WEL. 2018-03-01. Retrieved 2020-09-11.
  3. ^ MIT Events Calendar (February 13, 2018). "Vannevar Bush Lecture Series on Science and Technology Innovation: William Bonvillian". MIT Events Calendar. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  4. ^ U.S Department of Energy, ARPA-E (2019). "Keynote Speaker William Bonvillian Senior rector, MIT's Office of Digital Learning". ARPA-E Summit. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  5. ^ AAAS (September 12, 2020). "Elected Fellows". AAAS. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  6. ^ IEEEUSA (September 12, 2020). "Award for Distinguished Public Service". IEEEUSA. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  7. ^ "Alumni Sons and Daughters | Columbia College Today". www.college.columbia.edu. Retrieved 2021-11-14.
  8. ^ MIT News (January 5, 2006). "Senior Senate aide to head MIT's Washington Office". MIT News. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  9. ^ Congressional Record (January 25, 2006). "Tribute to William B. Bonvillian" (PDF). Congressional Record. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
  10. ^ MIT Washington Office (August 3, 2015). "MIT"S Policy Initiatives Model". MIT Washington Office. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  11. ^ MIT News (November 3, 2016). "3Q: William Bonvillian on connecting Cambridge and Capitol Hill". MIT News. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  12. ^ ResearchGate (September 13, 2020). "William Bonvillian - Research". ResearchGate. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
  13. ^ Weiss, Charles; Bonvillian, William B. (2009). Structuring an Energy Technology Revolution. pp. 2–12. doi:10.7551/mitpress/8161.001.0001. ISBN 9780262255516.
  14. ^ Bonvillian, William B.; Weiss, Charles (2015-10-01), "What's Blocking Innovation in Legacy Sectors?", Technological Innovation in Legacy Sectors, Oxford University Press, pp. 55–66, doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199374519.003.0005, ISBN 978-0-19-937451-9
  15. ^ Berger, Suzanne (2013). Making in America. Cambridge,MA: MIT Press.
  16. ^ Berger, Suzanne, and MIT Task Force on Production in the Innovation Economy (2013). "Making in America, from Innovation to Market". MIT Press. Retrieved September 13, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  17. ^ Advanced Manufacturing Partnership 2.0 (2014). "Accelerating U.S. Advanced Manufacturing" (PDF). Manufacturing.gov. Retrieved September 12, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  18. ^ Advanced Manufacturing Partnership (2012). "Report to the President on Capturing Domestic Competitive Advantage in Advanced Manufacturing" (PDF). manufacturing.gov. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  19. ^ Bonvillian, Singer (2018). Advanced Manufacturing : the New American Innovation Policies. MIT Press. pp. 101–186. ISBN 978-0-262-34339-8. OCLC 1020032964.
  20. ^ MIT Press (2018). Advance Manufacturing -- The New American Innovation Policies. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262037037. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  21. ^ Bonvillian, William (2018). Advanced Manufacturing. MIT Press. pp. 1–14.
  22. ^ Bonvillian, VanAtta, Windham (2020). The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  23. ^ Open Book Publishers (2020). Boone Bonvillian, William; Van Atta, Richard; Windham, Patrick (eds.). The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies. openbookpublishers.com. doi:10.11647/OBP.0184. ISBN 978-1-78374-791-7. S2CID 213533618. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  24. ^ MIT Integrated Learning Initiative (June 12, 2018). "Q&A with William Bonvillian, Lecturer in the MIT Science, Technology & Society and Political Science Departments". MIT Integrated Learning Initiative. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  25. ^ MIT News (April 28, 2020). "Workforce Education Project details how Covid-19 upends assumptions". MIT News. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  26. ^ Bonvillian, Sarma (2020). Workforce Education -- A New Roadmap. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. pp. 9–16. ISBN 9780262044882.
  27. ^ Bonvillian, William, and Sarma, Sanjay (September 13, 2020). Workforce Education - A New Roadmap. MIT Press. ISBN 9780262044882. Retrieved September 13, 2020.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  28. ^ Bonvillian, William B. (2022). Flank Speed, Novel of the Pacific Naval War off Guadalcanal in 1942. Zero Milestone Press. ISBN 9798407199106.
  29. ^ Researchgate (September 12, 2020). "William Bonvillian". Researchgate.net. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  30. ^ "Babbage Policy Forum". Cambridge Industrial Innovation Policy. Retrieved June 20, 2022.
  31. ^ MIT News (January 11, 2011). "6 from MIT Named AAAS Fellows". MIT News. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  32. ^ IEEE USA (September 12, 2020). "Award for Distinguished Public Service". IEEEUSA. Retrieved September 12, 2020.
  33. ^ MIT NEWS (May 2, 2007). "Bonvillian wins IEEE public service award". MIT News. Retrieved September 13, 2020.

External links[edit]

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