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ENVS Graduate Program - Secondary Core prior to Fall 2012

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John J. Kineman received his Ph.D. in Environmental Studies in 2007. He holds a Bachelors of Science degree from UCLA (1972) in Earth Physics, and a Master of Basic Science degree from CU Boulder (1979) combining ecology and biogeography. He retired from a career with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 2005 after 27 years service, the last 20 years of which he was working in ecoinformatics. He was also a Volunteer with the US Peace Corps in Kenya (1979-1980), where he served as a Senior Research Warden in what is now the Kenya Wildlife Service.

He began his Ph.D. research in Ecology in 1985, but had to suspend it several times as a result of work commitments. The ENVS program allowed him to combine multiple perspectives on Science, Policy, and Ethics acquired during his varied career. This provided an ideal way to develop his research interests, which included not just ecology and ecoinformatics from a traditional perspective, but also deep ecology from policy and ethical value perspectives.

His research took him on a quest to India, with the aid of a Fulbright Research Fellowship (2009), where he worked with Indian scientists on ecological niche modeling, and extended his Ph.D. research on 'relational theory' (following the work of the 20th Century Biomathematician Rober Rosen) into an integral science of nature. In India he also had the opportunity to study ancient Vedic traditions, discovering a deep compatibility with the foundations of relational science. This combination of Eastern and Western theory perspectives suggested a new approach to non-dual origins in all of nature and potentially affecting all disciplines of science.

Dr. Kineman now has a life-long commitment to developing 'relational science' as a new approach to understanding the nature of all systems - complex, living, and non-living; and as an integral philosophy of life that may help resolve crises, from personal to global, resulting from our dualistic view of reality. His work suggests that ethical principles are deeply ecological and reflected in the ancient 'Vedic' teachings. This ancient knowledge actually provided the primary basis for the profound shift to post-modern science in the West led by the early quantum theorists who were strongly influenced by Vedic studies. It also formed the basis for 'Deep Ecology' in the West. Dr. Kineman believes that Rosen's mathematical treatment of relational complexity can be used to transform modern science such that it can be fully integrated with the more complete 'non-dual' perspective of nature, life, and conscious experience as communicated from ancient times. This integration, sought by many since the dawn of science, can be developed as 'relational science' with immediate practical applications for better understanding, modeling, and managing natural systems.

Initial development of relational science involves perfecting a new class of models based on the ecological niche concept, and combining that with process models in a complex relational framework that reflects the holographic and fractal nature of real systems.

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