Kathi Vian is a Director at the Institute for the Future. She leads IFTF's Ten-Year Forecast Program, which is a broad scan of the emerging global environment, focusing on the intersection of new economic forces, changing environmental realities, and new social practices. She is the author of the annual Map of the Decade, which summarizes the most important trends and insights from each year's research across the Institute.

Kathi is also an active participant in the Institute's Technology Horizons Program, where she has been responsible over the last several years for developing a number of the maps of the emerging technology landscape. She's also a contributor to the Institute's work on cooperative strategy and technologies of cooperation.

Kathi's particular interest is in understanding the underlying mechanisms of social change and evolving human identity. Kathi is a writer by nature and uses her writing--both fiction and nonfiction--to explore the human situation.

Kathi has a Ph.D. in communications and was a participant in early IFTF work in computer conferencing and group communication.