Dr. Claire A. Nelson

Claire A. Nelson, Ph.D. is a Futurist, Sustainability Engineer, Social Entrepreneur, and Storyteller. She is a Forbes 50 Leading Female Futurist. She is the Founder and President of the Institute of Caribbean Studies, Futures Chair of the Science Engineering Technology Board at the Center for Global Governance and Emerging Law at Albany Law School, and Chief Ideation Leader at The Futures Forum.

She has been actively engaged in the business of international development for more than twenty-five years. She works in the area of project development and management, with a particular focus on private sector development. A renaissance woman, she is a Development Engineer, Social Entrepreneur, and Futurist. Read Forbes Names Jamaican Dr. Claire Nelson One of 50 Leading Female Futurists.

Claire is the Founder, Chair, and Chief Visionary Officer of the Omni Africa Space Exploration Analog Simulation (OASEAS), whose mission is to design, build, and operate a world-class research station designed to simulate human settlements in space, that forms the African node of the ecosystem of analog research stations around the world.

She is a Member of the Executive Board of the World Futures Studies Magazine and serves as Editor-At-Large of its flagship publication Human Futures Magazine. She is Campaign Chair at the National Caribbean American Heritage Month, and has served as a Futures Advisor to the VP of International Affairs at Morgan State University.

As a futurist and sustainability engineer, Claire helps organizations and people think about and see the future more clearly and design a map for their journey to the future they want. She is also a Member of the Association of Professional Futurists.

Claire is Chief Ideation Leader at The Futures Forum, a nonprofit practice of Sagient Futures which is an education, research, and consultancy in strategic foresight and sustainability engineering. This practice is dedicated to promoting the use of Futures Thinking and Strategic Foresight in service of SMART Futures for organizations in both the public and private sectors.

Founded in 2006, the practice provides keynote speeches, facilitation, and convening services to the private sector, policy sector, NGOs, and others interested in mastering the challenges and opportunities that confront them as they seek to shape their desired future. Watch Claire NELSON – What is Futures Studies?

In 2012, The White House, the U.S. State Department, and U.S. AID honored Claire by recognizing her as a White House Champion of Change. She was named one of the Top 100 Women Futurists in the “Twitterverse”, and also received an Outstanding Alumni Award from Purdue University, School of Industrial Engineering.

Claire is sought after as a speaker on issues about economic development, globalization, and issues concerning the Caribbean and its peoples. She is a frequent guest on the television talk show CARIBNATION seen on cable TV in the Washington D.C. area, as well as CARIBBEAN EXCHANGE on WEAA, Morgan University Radio.

Her speaking engagements have included National Association of Security Professionals, Congressional Black Caucus Conference, Harvard University Black MBA Association Conference, Women & Micro-enterprise Conference, African Development Bank, Florida International University, Cincinnati Women’s Chamber of Commerce, US Black Engineer of the Year Annual Conference, Howard University, Sacramento State University, National Council of Negro Women, and the National Congress of Black Women.

As a Writer, Storyteller, and Keynote Speaker, she helps people feel the future. She is a creative strategic thinker, change agent, and founding curator of TEDxIDB. Her work includes Caribbean Folklore, Spoken Word, Dub Poetry, Plays, and One Woman Shows.

She was the Artistic Director of Mudra Caribe Dancers, she worked on various plays, including Downing Street Affair, Resident Alien, Rivers of Blood, and Job’s Tale, and One Woman Show Limbo Like This. She also performed her one woman show Moon Runnings: The Life & Times of the First Jamaican on the Moon at the ASU Emerge Festival of the Future, UNESCO, and International Moon Day. Listen to We – Are – The – Crazy – Ones Original by Sagient Futurist.

Claire has been a frontrunner in the challenge of placing the topic of social exclusion and diversity on the agenda of the multilateral development assistance institutions and Washington international finance institutions.

She pioneered the IDB’s work on development with equity and as a result of her pioneering leadership, was honored with the prestigious Ortiz Mena Award at the Inter-American Development Bank in 2010. As a result of her pioneering work, she was invited to the Salzburg Seminar as a Fellow in 1997 and 1999 of the Seminars on Race and Ethnicity, in 2000 and 2003 to the Fetzer Institute Advisory Group on Moral, Ethical and Spiritual Leadership, and as Faculty at the Seminar on Leadership Across Geographic Borders and Cultural Boundaries.

Claire was also a participant in the Bellagio Consultation on the UN World Conference on Racism (WCAR) organized by the International Human Rights Law Group and was active in the Working Group on Globalization and Transnational Corporations.

Claire is the Founder and President of The Institute of Caribbean Studies (ICS) in Washington DC since 1993, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to highlighting the contributions of Caribbean Americans and advocating on issues affecting Caribbean Americans. Claire is the visionary behind such flagship events as the White House Caribbean American Community Briefings, the Annual Legislative Forum on Capitol Hill, Invest Caribbean, and the Caribbean American Heritage Awards.

Under her leadership, this nonprofit community think/do-tank, has become known as the leading Caribbean American advocacy group in Washington DC, and has succeeded in placing the Caribbean American agenda on the national policy stage. More recently, ICS has launched Ignite Caribbean: Let All Ideas Contend as a space for gathering emerging thought leaders and inter-generational dialogue on the future of the Caribbean.

As Campaign Chair at the National Caribbean American Heritage Foundation since 2006, established to promote the commemoration of June as National Caribbean American Heritage Month, Clair has been organizing events at the national level and identifying and engaging Caribbean American leaders and organizations in the process of commemorating the month of June across America. She was also commended in the US Congressional Record as a leader and the architect of the National Caribbean American Heritage Month each June.

Claire is also a Member of The Caribbean Studies Association (CSA), an independent professional organization devoted to the promotion of Caribbean studies.

Previously, between 2012 and 2022, Claire was Member of the International Editorial Advisory Board for the World Future Review and Journal of Future Studies. She was Guest Editor of the Special Edition of Futures Review on Global Development Futures 2030, published in 2014.

Between 2016 and 2020, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Corporate Sustainability Institute in Canada and a Board Member of the Sustainability Division at the Institute of Industrial Engineers between 2013 and 2016, where her responsibilities included assisting in the development of protocols for online education in sustainability issues for people working as IEs.

Claire was also Senior Fellow at the Institute for Alternative Futures between 2011 and 2014, Member of the Review Committee at the AAAS, and Alumni of the National Security Forum at Air War College, where she was invited by the Secretary of the Air Force. She was assigned to the Grand Strategy Seminar where they debated key issues surrounding existential threats to the USA. The Forum was a follow-up to participation as the guest of General Mark A. Welsh, Chief of Staff of the US Air Force in April 2015 and 2016.

Claire earned her Ph.D. in Engineering Management from The George Washington University in 1990 with her Doctoral Dissertation Systems Approach to Technology Assessment for Development Projects.

She was the first Jamaican woman to earn a Doctorate in an engineering discipline and the only black in her graduating class.

She earned her Master’s Degree of Engineering in Industrial Engineering in 1981 from Purdue University with her thesis Goal Programming Approach to National Energy Planning.

She earned her Bachelor’s Degree of Science in Industrial Engineering from the University at Buffalo in 1979, where she was also the Founding member of the Caribbean Students Association and became its President. Read Claire Nelson, BS ‘79 Ideation Leader of the Futures Forum.

After her Master’s Degree, Claire began her career as Technical Cooperation Specialist and Senior Development Equity Specialist at the Inter American Development Bank in 1981. She was responsible for providing strategic leadership for the organization’s efforts to promote social and economic inclusion and development with equity for people of African descent in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In 2012, she became the Vice President of the Staff Association within the company where she advocated on behalf of the 2,000 member staff of the organization. She developed and managed climate enrichment programs, such as TEDxIDB and Seminars on Peak Performance Protocols.

Claire also became a Member of the Alumni Extension at the National Society of Black Engineers from 1981 until 1990, when she became an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Industrial Engineering at Morgan State University.

She has served on numerous boards and committees including the US Department of Commerce US/Caribbean Business Development Council Advisory Board, Black Leadership Forum, DC Caribbean Carnival Association, International Think Tank Commission on Pan-African Affairs, Office of the Prime Minister of Barbados, African-American Unity Caucus, National Democratic Institute/Carter Center Election Observer Mission to the Dominican Republic, and Black Professionals in International Affairs.

Watch The Wormhole — A lady of the future: Dr. Claire Nelson (Part 1), Part 2, and 2020 Central Bank of the Future Conference Opening Keynote Address — Dr. Claire Nelson.

Listen to Freedom Road Podcast: Dr. Claire A. Nelson.

Read SMART Futures for a Flourishing World: A Paradigm Shift for Achieving Global Sustainability and The Future of Business. Read Towards Improved Development Effectiveness: Engaging the power of foresight thinking in development investment processes and World Futures Review Journal Volume 6 Issue 4, December 2014.

Watch Dr Claire A. Nelson… All In For Caribbean Girls Hack, Smart Futures for a Flourishing World with Author Dr. Claire Nelson, and White House Caribbean American Celebration: Dr. Claire A. Nelson.

Read “Smart Futures for a Flourishing World” by Claire Nelson Illustrates an Aspirational Tomorrow.

Visit her LinkedIn profile and Space for Humanity page. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram.