Nicholas Wright is a neuroscientist who researches the brain, technology and security at Oxford University, University College London, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC, where he also advises the Pentagon Joint Staff. His latest book is Warhead: How the brain shapes war and war shapes the brain (2025, Pan Macmillan, UK, and St. Martin’s Press, US).
He has advised the Pentagon Joint Staff for over a decade. On artificial intelligence (AI) he advises Europe’s largest software company, SAP. DARPA used his definition of gray zone conflict for their recent AI programme on the gray zone. Foreign Affairs chose his piece on AI for its Top 10 of 2018 on the net. He edited the book Artificial Intelligence, China, Russia and Global Order (Air University Press, 2019), and co-edited Human, Machine, War: How the Mind-Tech Nexus will Win Future Wars (Air University Press, 2025). He has collaborated with Peking University. He has led Track 1.5 dialogues e.g., with the White House, UK Cabinet Office and Australian Prime Minister’s office, as well as with the Australian and Canadian Government Chief Scientists.
He previously worked in nuclear policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC; used functional brain imaging at UCL and the London School of Economics; and was a neurology doctor in Oxford and London. The Economist and The New York Times covered his academic research. He has published in Foreign Affairs, The Atlantic, and Time, and appeared on the BBC and CNN.
He has a medical degree from UCL, a BSc in Health Policy from Imperial College London, Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (UK), and an MSc in Neuroscience and a PhD in Neuroscience both from UCL.