Biography

Now
Iain is currently a Senior Fellow in International Policy at the Washington-DC based think tank the Competitive Enterprise Institute.  He specializes in global warming, international regulatory matters and sound science.  He is also a Visiting Fellow at Civitas, the Institute for the Study of Civil Society in the UK, a Director and Co-founder of the newly-formed Anglosphere Institute, and a columnist for both Tech Central Station and United Press International.

Then
Iain was born at a very early age in South Shields in the industrial North-East of England.  It was late at night (he knows, because his mother asked him to turn the light on).  On first seeing him, his father asked "What is it?", to which his mother replied "I don't know, but we'll keep it for the cat to play with..."

Ahem.

Iain grew up in South Shields, a cultural midpoint between Newcastle, where he attended the Newcastle Royal Grammar School, and Sunderland, whose football team he loyally if foolishly supports through thick and, mostly, thin.  He went on to read "Greats" (Latin, Greek, Ancient History and Ancient and Modern Philosophy) at Wadham College, Oxford.  While there he continually neglected his studies in the fruitless pursuit of glory at the Oxford Union Society and the Oxford University Conservative Association and in the ultimately successful pursuit of the lovely Kristen.  To most people's amazement he emerged with a respectable degree.

Iain went on to work for the British Department of Transport.  As a lowly functionary, he ran a Directorate's finances, investigated the possibilities of private finance for an earlier version of the CrossRail project, and privatized Railtrack PLC RIP.  The DOT must have seen something in him as they sponsored him to get an MBA at Imperial College of Science in the University of London, but their singular lack of interest in promoting him somewhat took the edge off this investment.  Having privatized himself out of a job, he fled the country in 1997, marrying his beloved Kris in Richmond, Va and beginning a new life in the USA.

From 1998 to January 2003 he was first Senior Analyst and then Director of Research at a small organization that examined how scientific and statistical information are used and misused by the media and public policy makers.  One colleague described the organization as "the best nonprofit you've never heard of."  While there, he was published in Encyclopaedia Britanica, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Spectator (UK) and many other fine publications.  He looks back on much of his time there with fondness, but is very happy to be at CEI now.

Them
Iain is happily married to Kristen, a Yankee Democrat with a Southern accent.  Their occasional political disagreements only serve to make their marriage stronger, he feels.  They delight in the company of their daughter, Helen, born in October 2000, who is currently shaping up to have the legs of a supermodel and the brain of a criminal mastermind.  Iain is currently reconsidering his lifelong protestation that he will never own a gun.