Kim Eric Drexler (born April 25, 1955) is an American engineer best known for studies of the potential of molecular nanotechnology (MNT), from the 1970s and 1980s. His 1991 doctoral thesis at Massachusetts Institute of Technology was revised and published as the book Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery Manufacturing and Computation (1992), which received the Association of American Publishers award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992.  Drexler holds three degrees from MIT. He received his B.S. in Interdisciplinary Sciences in 1977 and his M.S. in 1979 in Astro/Aerospace Engineering with a Master's thesis titled "Design of a High Performance Solar Sail System." In 1991, he earned a Ph.D. through the MIT Media Lab (formally, the Media Arts and Sciences Section, School of Architecture and Planning) after the department of electrical engineering and computer science refused to approve Drexler's plan of study.
His Ph.D. work was the first doctoral degree on the topic of molecular nanotechnology and his thesis, "Molecular Machinery and Manufacturing with Applications to Computation," was published (with minor editing) as Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing and Computation (1992), which received the Association of American Publishers award for Best Computer Science Book of 1992.