Dr. R. Keith Sawyer, Morgan Distinguished Professor of Educational Innovation at UNC: Chapel Hill, is one of the world’s leading scientific experts on creativity, collaboration, and learning, and the author of several books including Learning to See: Inside the World's Leading Art and Design Schools (2025), Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation (2024) and Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity (2013).
Keith’s book Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration (2017) draws on his research on jazz and improv theater to show the reader how to be more creative in collaborative group settings and how to change organizations for the better. His other books on this topic include Group Creativity: Music, Theater, Collaboration and Creating Conversations, and he is the host of "The Science of Creativity" podcast.
Dr. Sawyer combines his scientific expertise with a strong hands-on background in real-world creativity. After receiving his computer science degree from MIT in 1982, he began his career with a two-year stint designing videogames for Atari. His titles included Food Fight, Neon, and Magician. From 1984 to 1990, he was a principal at Kenan Systems Corporation, where he worked as a management consultant on innovative technologies. His clients included Citicorp, AT&T, and U.S. West. Since receiving his Ph.D. in 1994, he has dedicated his career to research on collaboration and group creativity. He has been a jazz pianist for over 30 years, and spent several years playing piano with Chicago improv theater groups.
Dr. Sawyer’s unique and authoritative expertise in creativity and collaboration is in demand. He has given keynotes and consulted for countless corporations, associations, and nonprofits. He has created numerous half-day and full-day workshops for executives and leadership teams. His clients have included finance firms (Bank of America, Van Wyk); toy company Mattel; medical and pharmaceutical companies (Stryker, AstraZeneca, Pfizer); nonprofits (the Smithsonian Institution, the World Economic Forum); tech companies (Microsoft, Amazon); and even the San Francisco Exploratorium, the legendary science center in downtown San Francisco.
Dr. Sawyer is frequently interviewed on television (CNN, CNBC, Fox News) and radio. He has been quoted in numerous magazine and newspaper articles, including TIME, The New York Times, U. S. News and World Report, and many others.
Follow him on Twitter @drkeithsawyer
Speech topics
Each topic can be delivered as a keynote, as well as half-day and full-day workshops.
Managing for Group Genius
Dr. Sawyer engages the audience by telling little-known stories about the world's most innovative companies. He combines these stories with his own scientific studies of group genius to reveal the hidden principles that allow these companies to consistently innovate. Sawyer draws on his research to explain why brainstorming so often fails, how to manage teams for maximum creativity, and how to create an organization where group genius thrives. Companies desiring strategic, cultural change throughout the organization will benefit from this message.For senior executives, managers, and employees.
Developing Your Inner Creativity
An energetic and engaging talk that involves the audience in completely new creativity exercises, based on the latest psychological research. Dr. Sawyer shows audiences how they can become more creative by having more ideas, asking better questions, and identifying good ideas faster. Dr. Sawyer tells fascinating stories about cutting-edge research that reveal exactly what happens in the mind when we're at our most creative, and how to make that "aha!" moment happen regularly.For employees at any level.
Educating for Innovation
In today's innovation economy, education often seems stuck in the past-with rigid instructional methods that are designed to impart no more than facts and rote procedures. Human resource departments, corporate universities, and public schools alike are all struggling with how to transform their methods to support creative work. Drawing upon his experiences with San Francisco's legendary Exploratorium, as well as his experiences studying how creativity is taught, Dr. Sawyer describes fascinating new learning environments that will lead audiences to rethink what is possible.
THE JAZZ EXPERIENCE
In The Jazz Experience, Sawyer shares the stage with a jazz trio. Sawyer has been a jazz pianist since high school, and he has published several books analyzing how jazz ensembles generate surprising and original group creations. Sawyer introduces each of the trio's songs, describing the special balance of planning and improvisation that results in effective creativity and collaboration. Following each song, Sawyer poses provocative questions for the musicians, drawing out their unconscious inspiration and their conscious goals and thoughts. He ends by leading the audience in a Q&A session with the musicians. Sawyer has delivered The Jazz Experience with a wide range of jazz trios; a local trio is usually identified that works and performs near the client site. For the adventurous client, Sawyer has created several activities that bring together the audience and the musicians in a group improvisation.
Books
Learning to See: Inside the World's Leading Art and Design Schools
The definitive resource on how nationally known artists and designers teach—and what students learn—in the world’s top BFA and MFA programs.
The Creative Classroom: Innovative Teaching for 21st-century Learners
An original, compelling vision of schools where teaching and learning are centered on creativity.
Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation
Explaining Creativity examines research on thinking processes, personality, culture, mental health, groupwork, technology, self-beliefs, and more. It also reviews creativity across fields such as the arts, science, theater, music, and writing.
Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity
A science-backed method to maximize creative potential in any sphere of life.
Podcast
Welcome to THE SCIENCE OF CREATIVITY, your home for insights and inspiration about art, design, and invention. Your host is Dr. Keith Sawyer, one of the world's leading experts on creativity, art, and design. Dr. Sawyer is a tenured university professor who has published 20 books about the science of creativity. Our goal is to inspire you with stories of brilliant creators and world-changing inventions. You’ll learn about the latest psychological research and gain insights about creativity that will help you reach your full creative potential.