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"Dr. J." Hughes believes the future can be very fun, and that everybody can have lots of new toys. As a doctor of sociology, certified by a leading research university in the middle of a rough neighborhood on the south side of Chicago (the University of Chicago), he is fully qualified to diagnose the leading social causes of lack of fun and inadequate toy production, and prescribe the difficult to swallow, but absolutely necessary, medicines for social betterment.

Before starting Changesurfer Radio, Dr. J. had labored in a variety of peculiar vineyards. A mid-80's stint as a Buddhist monk and radical left exegete of Buddhist scriptures was thwarted by a lack of talent in Sanskrit, Pali and Japanese.

At the University of Chicago, Dr. J. labored to earn his "Dr." by mastering medical and organizational sociology, while working and teaching at the U of C's MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics. As a graduate student Dr. J. threw himself into radical politics, founding and editing the internationally distributed zine, EcoSocialist Review, as well as editing a local student newspaper and the national journal of the Youth Section of the Democratic Socialists of America.

But at the Ethics Center Dr. J. became increasingly distressed by the knee-jerk Luddism of both the Left and bioethics, and began to develop his vision of a radical democratic movement for technological progress. His lefty but high-tech orientation led first to writings such as "Embracing Change with All Four Arms: A Post-Humanist Defense of Human Genetic Engineering".

As a consultant to the University of Chicago Hospital and the Midwest Business Group on Health, and founder-editor of the international newsletter Doctor-Patient Studies, Dr. Hughes developed a unique perspective on systemic reform of health care organizations to empower patients. His dissertation examined the proposition that expert systems in the hands well-organized and well-trained nurses, midwives and allied health professionals may soon make doctors irrelevant to the practice of medicine.

In 1996 Dr. J., a profound feminist with a serious distaste for his own gender, moved to the cradle of American Puritanism when his wife, the acclaimed artist Monica Bock, began a position teaching sculpture at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. In 1997 Dr. J. abandoned plans to become the country's first post-Marxist health business consultant to begin working with Drs. Broadhead and Heckathorn at the University of Connecticut, assisting their project to train and incentivize heroin injectors to train and incentivize other injectors to practice safe injecting. Kind of like a harm reduction Amway.

In 1998 Dr. J. began to apply his unique insights to higher education administration. Dr. J. is currently Associate Director of Institutional Research and Planning at Trinity College in Hartford, where he teaches Health Policy and Research Methods in Trinity's Graduate Public Policy Studies program.

Also in 1998 Dr. J. started Changesurfer Radio as a vehicle for democratic transhumanist propaganda. Dr. J. is the Executive Director of the World Transhumanist Association, the global NGO pushing for radical improvement in the transhuman condition. He also began publishing and distributing a biweekly Change Surfing column.

Dr. J.s first book Cyborg Democracy: Free, Equal and United in a Posthuman Future will be published by Westview Press in October 2004. You can also stay in touch with Dr. J.s' brand of democratic transhumanism through the Cyborg Democracy blog.