Smithsonian Journeys Experts

A writer who spent much of his career as a foreign correspondent, Adam Tanner has long studied the impact of colonialism, empire and globalization as a foreign correspondent, author and lecturer, with a special focus on the enduring impact of Europe on the rest of the world. He was a Nieman fellow and then associate at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science from 2011-18.

He served as a Reuters news agency correspondent from 1995-2011, including as bureau chief for the Balkans (2008-2011), San Francisco bureau chief (2003-2008), and correspondent in Berlin, Moscow and Washington D.C.  He is one of America's leading experts on privacy and the commercialization of personal information and author of What Stays in Vegas: The World of Personal Data-Lifeblood of Big Business-and the End of Privacy as We Know It (2014) and Our Bodies, Our Data: How Companies Make Billions Selling Our Medical Records (Jan. 2017). 

He has appeared on CNN, Bloomberg TV, MSNBC, CNBC, NPR, the BBC and VOA; written for magazines including Scientific American, Forbes, Fortune, Time, MIT Technology Review, the Boston Globe and Slate; and has lectured in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.