Biography

Catherine D.L. Tan is a legal philosopher, design futurist, and the founder of Uncommon Future Press—a radical new publishing house liberating knowledge from ivory towers and transforming it into graphic novels, immersive media, and theatrical experiences. A Gates Cambridge Scholar and award-winning researcher, Catherine investigates fringe technologies—seasteads, space law, indigenous robots—as portals into the future of sovereignty and belonging. Her work sits at the intersection of law, aesthetics, and planetary politics, challenging the foundations of authority with both analytical rigor and artistic flair. With a background that spans diplomatic strategy, visual storytelling, and intellectual activism, Catherine builds institutions that are both speculative and real. She is architecting a cultural and legal renaissance—one that makes room for the weird, the visionary, and the exiled. Whether she is training the next generation of legal disruptors, drafting a blockchain constitution, or narrating utopias through design, Catherine remains committed to a single question: what does justice look like in worlds not yet built?

Links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-dl-tan-1b8290191