Peter Bishop

Interview

• "What are Future Studies" (Chicago, 21-07-1998)

Biography

Peter Bishop (bishop@cl.uh.edu) grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. He received a BA in philosophy from St. Louis University where he studied mathematics and physics. He received his doctoral degree in sociology from Michigan State University in 1974.

Dr. Bishop first taught in 1973 at Georgia Southern College, where he specialised in social problems and political sociology. He is currently Associate Professor of the Humanities at the University of Houston-Clear Lake, where he began working in 1976 teaching research methods and statistics. He chairs and teaches courses in the graduate program in Studies of the Future . He also facilitates groups in developing scenarios, visions and strategic plans for the future. He was President of the programme from 1983 to 1996. From 1990 to 1996 he was also the Executive Director of the Institute for Futures Research and from 1985 to 1992 founding member of the University's Research Institute for Computing and Information Sciences.

He has participated in numerous specialised conferences and public debates and conducts corporate seminars on futures topics for business, government organisations and non-governmental organisations. Dr. Bishop facilitates strategic planning, scenario development and visioning workshops for clients such as IBM, Caltex Petroleum, Toyota Motor Sales, Shell Pipeline Corporation, Defense Intelligence Agency, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, W.K.Kellogg Foundation, Texas Department of Commerce, City of Las Cruces NM and the Canadian Radio and Television Commission.

Dr. Bishop has worked for the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) where he designed the database interface now being used by hundreds of JSC administrators.

He was founder and director of the Space Business Research Center from 1986 to 1990, and founder and first president of the Texas Council of Faculty Governance Organizations from 1978 to 1981.