“(S)cience and technology are advancing at great speed, but if they are not advancing in service to humanity, that is a problem,” McQuillan said. Boston Globe.

To that end, McQuillan, founder and CEO of waste management company Triumvirate Environmental, has invested ten million dollars in a new institute in the Boston area to investigate “the interaction between scientific issues and social issues.” Sphere.

The McQuillan Institute for Science, Technology and the Human Future has its roots at Harvard University, where McQuillan studied after studying biochemistry and government at Bowdoin College. The institute’s scientific director and co-founder is Sheila Jasanoff, a professor of science and technology studies at the Harvard Kennedy School and one of McQuillan’s former teachers.

McQuillan told the newspaper they want to promote scholarship and research that can help state and federal policymakers on topics ranging from artificial intelligence to stem cell research. “We need to be able to develop policies to regulate these new discoveries… Technology is everywhere we go, and it’s emerging much faster than a democracy can manage.” Read more.