Department: Interdisciplinary Liberal Studies and Independent Scholars

Areas of Expertise:

• software and information studies
• computing and culture
• futures studies
• creativity
• individualized and interdisciplinary education

Frana's scholarship and teaching focuses on interdisciplinary approaches to analyzing and understanding artificial intelligence, health informatics, and digital technologies. He is editor and contributor to the Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence: The Past, Present, and Future of AI (2021) and advisory board member for the Museum of Science Fiction (MOSF) in Washington, DC. As director of science programming for the MOSF’s annual Escape Velocity convention, he is engaged in the organization’s mission to reinvigorate the interest of young people in science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) by producing and presenting the most compelling, exciting, educational, and entertaining science festival in the United States, using science fiction as the primary engine.

He received a doctorate in the history of technology, science & medicine from Iowa State University, and a bachelor's degree in history and economics from Wartburg College. He served for many years as software history project director for the Charles Babbage Institute for Computing, Information & Culture at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. He is past associate dean of the JMU Honors College and past director of undergraduate research in the Norbert O. Schedler Honors College at the University of Central Arkansas. 

Media contact: Eric Gorton, gortonej@jmu.edu