Dylan Cawthorne

My name is Dylan Cawthorne, and I am an Associate Professor at the Drone Center at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. I was born off-grid in Alaska, and have lived in Denmark for the past 10 years. I have a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, a masters in product design and innovation, and a PhD with a thesis that was about using ethics in drone design. I worked as an aerospace engineer in the US for ten years before moving to Denmark. There, I worked at Boeing where I helped develop the 777 Freighter aircraft and at Scaled Composites where I helped develop the manufacturing process for the world's largest aircraft the Stratolaunch.

Since then, I have focused my life and my work on using ethics to inform technology design. My aim is to support the flourishing of humans and other life on the planet forever.   I see myself as a champion for the use of ethics and human values in engineering, and as an activist engineer. A common theme in my work is the support of de-centralized technologies and democratic, grassroots organizations and methods.

Technology represents great possibilities for humanity, but this power must be coupled with responsibility, an ethical perspective, and environmental considerations. IDA can and should be a leader to make better technologies and better engineers. I believe that that I can bring a more humanistic perspective to IDA - in the end, technology is there to benefit society and the planet.

I think my academic and industry experience make me a good candidate to address the following key issues:

• Ethics of technology - my main area of research is using value sensitive design methods and ethical principles to design and build technology - as documented in my PhD thesis. 
• Environmental sustainability - I have developed more environmentally-sustainable drones, performed environmental impact assessments, and acted as foreperson for Repair Cafe Odense which directly addresses wasted and circular economy
• A holistic perspective - I work in a cross-disciplinary way which avoids narrow and sub-optimized problem statements and easy technological "solutions"; the problems of the future are broad and complex and should be addressed in a holistic way

My name is Dylan Cawthorne, and I am an Associate Professor at the Drone Center at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. I was born off-grid in Alaska, and have lived in Denmark for the past 10 years. I have a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, a masters in product design and innovation, and a PhD with a thesis that was about using ethics in drone design. I worked as an aerospace engineer in the US for ten years before moving to Denmark. There, I worked at Boeing where I helped develop the 777 Freighter aircraft and at Scaled Composites where I helped develop the manufacturing process for the world's largest aircraft the Stratolaunch.

Since then, I have focused my life and my work on using ethics to inform technology design. My aim is to support the flourishing of humans and other life on the planet forever.   I see myself as a champion for the use of ethics and human values in engineering, and as an activist engineer. A common theme in my work is the support of de-centralized technologies and democratic, grassroots organizations and methods.

Technology represents great possibilities for humanity, but this power must be coupled with responsibility, an ethical perspective, and environmental considerations. IDA can and should be a leader to make better technologies and better engineers. I believe that that I can bring a more humanistic perspective to IDA - in the end, technology is there to benefit society and the planet.

I think my academic and industry experience make me a good candidate to address the following key issues:

• Ethics of technology - my main area of research is using value sensitive design methods and ethical principles to design and build technology - as documented in my PhD thesis.
• Environmental sustainability - I have developed more environmentally-sustainable drones, performed environmental impact assessments, and acted as foreperson for Repair Cafe Odense which directly addresses wasted and circular economy
• A holistic perspective - I work in a cross-disciplinary way which avoids narrow and sub-optimized problem statements and easy technological "solutions"; the problems of the future are broad and complex and should be addressed in a holistic way