Kenneth A. Oye serves as co-Director of the MIT Program on Emerging Technologies (PoET) and holds a joint appointment as an Associate Professor of Political Science and Engineering Systems at MIT. He served two terms as Director of the MIT Center for International Studies (1992-2000). Prior to MIT, he served on the faculties of the Kennedy School at Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of California, and Swarthmore College and was a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution. He holds a BA in Economics and Political Science with Highest Honors from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D in Political Science with the Chase Dissertation Prize from Harvard University.
His books on international relations and political economy include Cooperation Under Anarchy, Economic Discrimination and Political Exchange, and a four volume series on Carter, Reagan and Bush foreign policy. His works on science and technology policy applying theories and methods from the field of political economy to problems of science and technology policy, with emphasis on appraising market and non-market institutions and processes in light of pervasive uncertainty over risks, benefits, and interests. His short pieces on these topics include “Planned Adaptation in Risk Regulation: A Review of US Environmental, Health, and Safety Regulation,” Technological Forecasting & Social Change (Lawrence McCray, Kenneth A. Oye and Arthur Petersen, in press 2010); “The Intellectual Commons and Property in Synthetic Biology” (Kenneth A. Oye and Rachel Wellhausen) in Marcus Schmidt (ed), Synthetic Biology (Springer, 2009); “Embracing Uncertainty: A Review of Future Imperfect” in Issues in Science and Technology (Fall 2009); “What Rough Beast: Synthetic Biology and the Future of Biosecurity,” (Gautam Mukunda, Kenneth A. Oye and Scott Mohr), Politics and the Life Sciences, September 2009; “Regulating Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage” (Mark de Figueiredo, Howard Herzog, Paul Joskow, Kenneth Oye, David Reiner, IRGC, 2007; “The Precautionary Principle and International Conflict over Domestic Regulation” Water Science & Technology, Fall 2005; “Regulatory Diversity: Can the World Trading System Cope?” Thomas Bernauer, Kenneth Oye, David Victor, Swiss Political Science Review, Autumn 2000; "Self-Interest and Environmental Management" (Kenneth Oye and James Maxwell) in Robert Keohane and Elinor Ostrom (eds), Local Commons and Global Interdependence: Heterogeneity and Cooperation in Two Domains (Sage, 1995); "International Responses to Japanese Plutonium Programs," (Eugene Skolnikoff, Tatsujiro Suzuki, and Kenneth A. Oye), MIT CIS Working Paper, #2614 C/95-5, 1995."
Professor Oye has served as a consultant to the U.S. Departments of the Treasury and Commerce and the Export Import Bank and the Petersen Institute for International Economics on financial issues, and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization on technology transfer and climate change. He also serves as a faculty PI in SynBERC, the NSF supported Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center.