Advisory Board

Dr. Peter C. Bishop

Peter C. Bishop, Ph.D., APF is coeditor of Thinking about the Future, Guidelines for Strategic Foresight, Associate Professor of Strategic Foresight, and Coordinator of the graduate program in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. He specializes in techniques for long term forecasting and planning. He delivers keynote addresses and conducts seminars on the future for business, government and not-for-profit organizations. He also facilitates groups in developing scenarios, visions and strategic plans for the future.
 
His clients include IBM, the NASA Johnson Space Center, Nestle USA, the Texas Department of Transportation, Tetra Pak, the Shell Pipeline Corporation, the Defense and Central Intelligence Agencies, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Waitt Family Foundation, the California Environmental Protection Agency, and the Center for Houston’s Future. He is also a founding board member of the new Association of Professional Futurists, and he is President of his own firm, Strategic Foresight and Development, which offers education and training in futures thinking and techniques to the corporate market.
 
His research interests include:

  • Quantitative Futures Research, Using Systems Approaches, World Futures
  • Social Change, Theories of Society
  • Our Future in Space, Future of Biotechnology, Future of Energy and the Environment
  • Philosophy of Science, Research Methods and Statistics
Peter came to the University of Houston in 2005, having taught futures studies at the Clear Lake campus since 1982. He started teaching at Georgia Southern College in 1973 where he specialized in social problems and political sociology. He earned his doctoral degree in sociology from Michigan State University in 1974. He earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from St. Louis University where he also studied mathematics and physics. He grew up in St. Louis, Missouri where he was a member of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) for seven years. He is married with two children and four grandchildren.