# Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement **Entity class:** Interdisciplinary institute and public-engagement program **Aliases:** ICE at Dartmouth; Dartmouth ICE **Active program period represented by archive:** 2016–2021 **Institution:** [[wiki/Dartmouth College|Dartmouth College]] ## Definition The **Institute for Cross-Disciplinary Engagement (ICE)** was created at Dartmouth under theoretical physicist [[wiki/Marcelo Gleiser|Marcelo Gleiser]] to make the science–humanities boundary traversable in both directions. Its program joined scientists, philosophers, writers, theologians, artists, and public intellectuals around consciousness, free will, reality, time, mortality, religion, knowledge, intelligence, technological transformation, and the future of civilization. The [[wiki/John Templeton Foundation|John Templeton Foundation]] records Grant 55342 to the Trustees of Dartmouth College, led by Gleiser, at **$4,145,147**. Dartmouth’s launch announcement used a lower approximate amount. The institute’s delivery architecture included [[wiki/ICE Fellows Program|fellows]], [[wiki/ICE Public Dialogues|public dialogues]], workshops, the [[wiki/ICE Launching Conference|launching conference]], DartmouthX/edX courses, videos, podcasts, and publications. A 2024 Dartmouth account says Gleiser’s later [[wiki/Incubator for Human Flourishing|Incubator for Human Flourishing]] followed five years directing ICE. ## Governance and operations - **director:** [[wiki/Marcelo Gleiser|Marcelo Gleiser]]. - **assistant director and public contact:** [[wiki/Amy Flockton|Amy Flockton]]. - **steering board:** [[wiki/K. C. Cole|K. C. Cole]], [[wiki/Paul Davies|Paul Davies]], [[wiki/Everard Findlay|Everard Findlay]], Gleiser, [[wiki/Rebecca Goldstein|Rebecca Goldstein]], [[wiki/Seth Lloyd|Seth Lloyd]], [[wiki/Marilynne Robinson|Marilynne Robinson]], [[wiki/Adina Roskies|Adina Roskies]], [[wiki/William Storrar|William Storrar]], and [[wiki/Peter Ulric Tse|Peter Ulric Tse]]. - **host institution:** [[wiki/Dartmouth College|Dartmouth College]]. - **funder:** [[wiki/John Templeton Foundation|John Templeton Foundation]]. ## Programs and convenings - [[wiki/ICE Launching Conference|The Sciences, the Humanities, the Future]] — September 30–October 1, 2016. - [[wiki/ICE Fellows Program|ICE Fellows Program]] — a visiting-fellow network spanning philosophy, physics, astrobiology, history, religion, ecology, communication, and social epistemology. - [[wiki/ICE Public Dialogues|ICE Public Dialogues]] — events at [[wiki/92NY|92Y/92NY]], [[wiki/Museum of Science Boston|Museum of Science Boston]], [[wiki/City Arts and Lectures|City Arts & Lectures]], [[wiki/Chicago Ideas|Chicago Ideas]], Arizona State University, and Dartmouth. - [[wiki/DartmouthX|DartmouthX]] / [[wiki/edX|edX]] courses — scalable educational layer. - multimedia archive and podcast hosted by [[wiki/Franklin Jacoby|Franklin Jacoby]]. ## Complete participant graph ### Founding conference and board [[wiki/Marcelo Gleiser|Marcelo Gleiser]] · [[wiki/K. C. Cole|K. C. Cole]] · [[wiki/Paul Davies|Paul Davies]] · [[wiki/Everard Findlay|Everard Findlay]] · [[wiki/Rebecca Goldstein|Rebecca Goldstein]] · [[wiki/Seth Lloyd|Seth Lloyd]] · [[wiki/Marilynne Robinson|Marilynne Robinson]] · [[wiki/Adina Roskies|Adina Roskies]] · [[wiki/William Storrar|William Storrar]] · [[wiki/Peter Ulric Tse|Peter Ulric Tse]] · [[wiki/Maria Popova|Maria Popova]] · [[wiki/Mary-Jane Rubenstein|Mary-Jane Rubenstein]] · [[wiki/Alan Lightman|Alan Lightman]] · [[wiki/Phil Hanlon|Phil Hanlon]] · [[wiki/Amy Flockton|Amy Flockton]] ### Fellows [[wiki/Franklin Jacoby|Franklin Jacoby]] · [[wiki/Graham Hubbs|Graham Hubbs]] · [[wiki/Matthew Nisbet|Matthew Nisbet]] · [[wiki/Monica Gagliano|Monica Gagliano]] · [[wiki/Gabriel Rabin|Gabriel Rabin]] · [[wiki/Philipp Höhn|Philipp Höhn]] · [[wiki/Eric Campbell|Eric Campbell]] · [[wiki/Michela Massimi|Michela Massimi]] · [[wiki/Mark Sprevak|Mark Sprevak]] · [[wiki/David Grinspoon|David Grinspoon]] · [[wiki/Tasneem Zehra Husain|Tasneem Zehra Husain]] · [[wiki/Daniel Singer|Daniel Singer]] · [[wiki/Bertrand Guillaume|Bertrand Guillaume]] · [[wiki/Alan Lightman|Alan Lightman]] · [[wiki/Anthony Aveni|Anthony Aveni]] · [[wiki/Emanuele Ciancio|Emanuele Ciancio]] · [[wiki/Salman Hameed|Salman Hameed]] · [[wiki/Adam Frank|Adam Frank]] · [[wiki/Evan Thompson|Evan Thompson]] · [[wiki/Mary-Jane Rubenstein|Mary-Jane Rubenstein]] · [[wiki/Damian Sowinski|Damian Sowinski]] ### Public-dialogue, conference, and workshop participants [[wiki/Antonio Damasio|Antonio Damasio]] · [[wiki/David Chalmers|David Chalmers]] · [[wiki/B. Alan Wallace|B. Alan Wallace]] · [[wiki/Sean Carroll|Sean Carroll]] · [[wiki/Jill Tarter|Jill Tarter]] · [[wiki/Patricia Churchland|Patricia Churchland]] · [[wiki/Jimena Canales|Jimena Canales]] · [[wiki/Ed Boyden|Ed Boyden]] · [[wiki/Mark O'Connell|Mark O’Connell]] · [[wiki/Siddhartha Mukherjee|Siddhartha Mukherjee]] · [[wiki/Elizabeth Kolbert|Elizabeth Kolbert]] · [[wiki/Jaron Lanier|Jaron Lanier]] · [[wiki/Sue Halpern|Sue Halpern]] · [[wiki/John Browne|John Browne]] · [[wiki/Tad Friend|Tad Friend]] · [[wiki/Richard Powers|Richard Powers]] · [[wiki/Carol Cleland|Carol Cleland]] · [[wiki/Robert Hazen|Robert Hazen]] · [[wiki/Vanessa Woods|Vanessa Woods]] · [[wiki/Brian Hare|Brian Hare]] · [[wiki/M. T. Anderson|M. T. Anderson]] · [[wiki/Joyce Banda|Joyce Banda]] · [[wiki/Barry Randolph|Barry Randolph]] · [[wiki/Robin Wall Kimmerer|Robin Wall Kimmerer]] · [[wiki/Ayaan Hirsi Ali|Ayaan Hirsi Ali]] · [[wiki/Mary Flanagan|Mary Flanagan]] · [[wiki/John Haldane|John Haldane]] · [[wiki/Bill McKibben|Bill McKibben]] · [[wiki/Martin Rees|Martin Rees]] · [[wiki/Kim Stanley Robinson|Kim Stanley Robinson]] · [[wiki/Peter Singer|Peter Singer]] · [[wiki/Terry Tempest Williams|Terry Tempest Williams]] · [[wiki/Michel Bitbol|Michel Bitbol]] · [[wiki/Christopher Fuchs|Christopher Fuchs]] · [[wiki/Jenann Ismael|Jenann Ismael]] · [[wiki/Peter Lewis|Peter Lewis]] · [[wiki/Robert Sharf|Robert Sharf]] · [[wiki/Jeremy DeSilva|Jeremy DeSilva]] · [[wiki/Shinge Sherry Chayat|Shinge Sherry Chayat]] · [[wiki/Richard Beaudoin|Richard Beaudoin]] · [[wiki/Eliot Michaelson|Eliot Michaelson]] · [[wiki/Susanna Schellenberg|Susanna Schellenberg]] · [[wiki/John Kulvicki|John Kulvicki]] · [[wiki/Heather Hurst|Heather Hurst]] · [[wiki/Franco Rossi|Franco Rossi]] ## Intellectual routes - **mind and agency:** [[wiki/Consciousness|Consciousness]], [[wiki/Hard Problem of Consciousness|Hard Problem]], [[wiki/Free Will|Free Will]], neuroethics, and moral responsibility. - **intelligence across substrates:** [[wiki/Artificial Intelligence|AI]], machine intelligence, [[wiki/Extraterrestrial Intelligence|extraterrestrial intelligence]], [[wiki/Plant Intelligence|plant intelligence]], and [[wiki/Planetary Intelligence|planetary intelligence]]. - **human transformation:** [[wiki/Transhumanism|Transhumanism]], [[wiki/Life Extension|Life Extension]], cyborgs, augmentation, and immortality. - **cosmos and origins:** cosmology, multiverse, astrobiology, time, life, and planetary evolution. - **meaning and value:** [[wiki/Science and Religion|Science and Religion]], spirituality, faith, pantheism, human flourishing, and the limits of knowledge. - **civilizational futures:** climate, democracy, digital behavior modification, tribalism, the Anthropocene, and the future of humanity. ## Successor and adjacent Templeton work - [[wiki/Incubator for Human Flourishing|Incubator for Human Flourishing]] — launched by Gleiser with William Egginton and Kari Gleiser. - [[wiki/The Seekers|The Seekers]] — Templeton World Charity Foundation project led by Gleiser. - [[wiki/Spiritual Loop Project|Spiritual Loop Project]] — CTI project under William Storrar on machine intelligence and spiritual progress. - [[wiki/Seven Days of Genius|Seven Days of Genius]] — earlier Templeton-funded 92Y platform that included consciousness, AI, and the brain. ## Relationships - **disambiguation:** [[wiki/ICE|ICE]]. - **institutional bridge:** [[wiki/John Templeton Foundation|Templeton]] → [[wiki/Dartmouth College|Dartmouth]] → ICE → venues and participants. - **public New York partner:** [[wiki/92NY|92Y/92NY]]. - **research method:** [[wiki/Convergence Research|Convergence Research]] and [[wiki/Two Cultures|Two Cultures]]. - **disambiguation route:** [[wiki/ICE|ICE disambiguation]], [[collections/Consciousness Continuity|Consciousness Continuity]], and [[collections/Transhumanism and the Epstein Science Network|Transhumanism network]]. ## Sources / Provenance - [ICE at Dartmouth — home](https://www.ice.dartmouth.edu/) - [ICE — Steering Board](https://www.ice.dartmouth.edu/about/steering-board) - [ICE — Fellows Program](https://www.ice.dartmouth.edu/fellows-program) - [ICE — Public Dialogues and Workshops](https://www.ice.dartmouth.edu/public-dialogues-workshops) - [ICE — Launching Conference](https://www.ice.dartmouth.edu/conference) - [Templeton Grant 55342](https://www.templeton.org/grant/the-institute-for-cross-disciplinary-engagement-at-dartmouth-2) - [Dartmouth — Incubator for Human Flourishing](https://fas.dartmouth.edu/news/2024/12/marcelo-gleiser-launches-interdisciplinary-think-tank) ## British influence and transatlantic elite-network layer ICE’s British-influence route is documented through its principal funder rather than through British ownership of Dartmouth. [[wiki/John Templeton|John Templeton]] passed through the [[wiki/Rhodes Scholarship|Rhodes Scholarship]] and [[wiki/Balliol College|Balliol College, Oxford]], later became a British citizen and knight, and built the philanthropic complex that funded ICE. ICE itself then connected Dartmouth to British and Commonwealth intellectual figures including [[wiki/Paul Davies|Paul Davies]], [[wiki/William Storrar|William Storrar]], [[wiki/Martin Rees|Martin Rees]], and [[wiki/John Haldane|John Haldane]]. This is best classified as **transatlantic elite-network and epistemic infrastructure**, not proof of British governmental control. The relevant mechanism is philanthropic selection and support of institutions, fields, convenings, prestige, and public vocabulary. See [[wiki/Philanthropic Capital as Civilizational Middleware|Philanthropic Capital as Civilizational Middleware]] and [[collections/War With Empire|War With Empire]].