Academic History
I thought I would be an astronomer. I had never heard of anthropology. As an undergraduate, the quarter system allowed me to experiment with many subjects. Religious studies, histories (many), dramaturgy, poetics, art history, sociology, psychology, and more. Gradually anthropology bubbled up to the top of my list. My first anthro classes were physical anthropology and archaeology, essentially the prequels to my many history classes. Then many flavors of cultural anthropology filled in the map. My two favorite anthro subjects were admittedly diametrically opposed – ecological/evolutionary anthropology and Boasian anthropological linguistics. That didn’t bother me.
An employment interlude – Six years working at the Kennedy Space Center on the space shuttle. In that time at night, I earned a Masters degree in computer science.
Following my heart, I returned to anthropology. Classes of ‘peoples’ around the world, Inkas, and linguistics. Bitten by the computer bug, I also took CS classes in the emerging AI areas – natural language processing, expert systems, and neural networks. And some cognitive psych to go with it all. For my Masters, I wrote a paper, “PDP Cognitive Models in Anthropology.”
Then a pivot, to my early passion for ecological, materialist, and evolutionary anthropology and archaeology. I discovered that I could take ecology classes from a name I knew, HT Odum. He became a huge influence, still today. Marvin Harris was also now at Florida, and I took his seminars. My chair was a very supportive archaeologist with scientific and evolutionary training, Bill Keegan. I spoke some Dutch, and for my dissertation I took aim at a small Dutch island in the Caribbean undergoing an ecotourism transition.
On my return, with no funds, it was a programming job by day and dissertation by night. In those years, Odum’s weekly ‘systems seminar’ kept me going. I taught myself systems simulation, read Prigogine, took Buzz Holling’s adaptive cycles class, and sewed it all together into my dissertation. With my new wife from Taiwan, we two PhDs crossed the Pacific to this small Buddhist university on the east coast, from which I have just retired. The rest of the website will tell you what I taught and wrote from then until now.
With Pictures
I taught anthropology, ecology, language development, cultural evolution, and ecotourism at a small Buddhist university on the east coast of Taiwan for 22 years, recently retired. My wife and I have two wonderful boys.
I did my dissertation research under the guidance of systems ecologist Howard T. Odum. My topic was the impact of ecotourism on the people and nature of the island of Bonaire in the Caribbean.
My (second) Masters Degree explored the junction of linguistics, cognitive psychology, and artificial intelligence. My thesis paper was “PDP Cognitive Models in Anthropology.”
Between my undergraduate degree and my second Masters Degree, I worked as a computer programmer at the Kennedy Space Center on the space shuttle system. While working, I earned my first Masters Degree at the Florida Institute of Technology in Computer Science.
I grew up in Cocoa Beach, Florida with a love for the ocean, for space, and for science. I stayed in Florida for my Bachelors degree in Anthropology at the University of Florida.
