Dr. Edward Hudgins
Edward Hudgins, Ph.D. is founder of the Human Achievement Alliance. He’d been developing this project idea some years ago, finally bringing it to fruition in 2020. He has been fascinated by science and technology since working as a high school intern at NASA-Goddard during the Apollo 11 moonshot.
He recognizes the potential of exponential technology in information, biotech, nanotech, AI, and robotics to usher in an era of undreamed of prosperity with long, healthy lives. But he also sees the need to revolutionize our antiquated education and to remove government barriers and disincentives that block innovation and entrepreneurship ship. As important, he sees the need to replace the pessimism, nihilism, anger, and malevolence that dominates our culture with optimism, purpose, joy in achievement, and vision of a benevolent future.
Ed has served as research director at the Heartland Institute, commissioning, fact-checking, and editing policy papers on energy and environment, healthcare, education, and taxes and regulations. His own research, podcasts, speeches, and media work focused especially on the need to revamp the current government certification process for new medical treatments, labor regulations, and current failing schooling system.
Before Heartland, he served in various roles at The Atlas Society, director of advocacy, executive director, and senior scholar, promoting open Objectivism, the philosophy of reason, achievement, individualism, and freedom. He examined the intersection of politics, values, and culture, with a special emphasis on the need for a human achievement culture. In his best-selling book, The Republican Party Civil War: Will Freedom Win?, he criticized the GOP’s drift away from advocating individual liberty and free markets.
Before joining TAS, Ed was director of regulatory studies and editor of Regulation magazine at the Cato Institute. There the books Ed produced included Freedom to Trade: Refuting the New Protectionism, The Last Monopoly: Privatizing the Postal Service for the Information Age, Mail @ the Millennium: Will the Postal Service Go Private?, and Space: The Free-Market Frontier.
Ed also worked at The Heritage Foundation as policy analyst, specializing in trade and international development, as deputy director for domestic policy studies, and as director of the Center for International Economic Growth, where he pioneered the concept of an Index of Economic Freedom.
Ed has been active in Maryland politics and was elected three times as a Commissioner in the town of Cottage City.
Over the past three decades Ed has appeared on most major TV networks, and his op-eds have been featured in papers like the Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Houston Chronicle.
Ed earned his B.A. in government and politics from the University of Maryland, an M.A. in political theory and history from American University, and Ph.D. in political philosophy and international political economy from Catholic University of America. He has taught at universities both in the United States and Germany.
Listen to Space: The Free-Market Frontier. Interview with Edward Hudgins and Ed Hudgins on the Ben Swann Radio Show. View his Facebook page. Read his LinkedIn profile. Follow his Twitter feed.