Alija Blackwell (they/them) is a futurist and transdisciplinary artist. As the Director of the Oneiric Lab, a strategic foresight and immersive design studio. Their work primarily maps historical patterns and emerging trends at the intersections of technology, climate, and transformative justice to anticipate pathways to equitable futures.
Most recently, Blackwell was a Next Generation Foresight Practitioner with the School of International Futures where they led speculative prototyping and scenario planning workshops with frontline communities. As a Transition Design Fellow at the Natural Resources Defense Council, they developed Seeding Power for Regenerative Futures, a toolkit forecasting how climate migrations will shape civic engagement and belonging in the United States to offer strategies to policy officials, business leaders, and frontline communities to navigate changing climates.
Blackwell has served as a strategist for U.S. and international NGOs, and academic and cultural institutions to guide the implementation of long-term operational plans through policy innovation and multimedia narrative strategies to advance social change. For their efforts, Blackwell has received honors and awards from the Institute for the Future, Santa Fe Art Institute, U.S. Department of Education, Congressional Hunger Center, the Aspen Institute, 100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics, among other institutions.
During their fellowship, Blackwell will be researching the impacts of surveillance technologies on frontline communities recovering from natural disasters.