Here are some of the people who help make the Citizen Scientists League possible:
Sheldon Greaves, Ph.D.
Co-Founder and Executive Director, Writer, Amateur Scientist
Dr. Greaves has been active in the citizen science and educational communities for a number of years. He was a co-editor of the CD-ROM, The Amateur Scientist. The Complete 20th Century Collection originally published by Tinker’s Guild, which he co-founded. He was also the first General Editor of The Citizen Scientist from 2001 to 2003. Dr. Greaves was also one of the founders and former Chief Academic Officer of Henley-Putnam University, a nationally accredited online university specializing in intelligence, counterterrorism, and strategic security. As a part-time Professor, he teaches courses in Religious Extremism and Secret Societies, and is the Founder and an Editorial Advisor to the Journal for Strategic Security. In addition to his interests in citizen science, Dr. Greaves has a wide range of other interests; among other things he has learned over a dozen languages, both living and dead. He lives in San Jose, CA.
Forrest M. Mims, III
Co-founder, Amateur Scientist, Writer, Photographer
Forrest M. Mims III, is the author of a series of Radio Shack electronics books that have sold over 7 million copies, and he is widely regarded as one of the world’s most prolific citizen scientists. Mims does scientific studies in many fields using instruments he designs and makes. After he found and published an error in NASA’s ozone satellite, NASA assigned Mims to measure the ozone layer during satellite overpasses through thick smoke in Brazil (1995 and 1997) and at seven major US forest fires (1996). His articles have been published in such peer-reviewed journals as Nature, Science, Applied Optics, Journal of Geophysical Research, Geophysical Research Letters, Photochemistry and Photobiology, EOS, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society and others. An instrument he developed to measure the ozone layer earned him a Rolex Award for Enterprise in 1993. In December 2008 Discover magazine named Mims one of the “50 Best Brains in Science.” Mims’ latest book is a scholarly history of Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory, where he has calibrated his instruments each year since 1992. (Adapted from Wikipedia and Mims’ home page.)
Denise D. Greaves, Ph.D.
Naturalist, Photographer
Has been photographing nature for more than twenty years. She holds a Ph.D. in Classics from Stanford University is a Professor at Henley-Putnam University where she teaches classes on the history of intelligence from antiquity through Medieval times, history of strategic security, and global geopolitics. She is also an accomplished musician and has published several articles and one book on subjects related to ancient Greek music and music theory.
Bill Hilton, Jr.
Educator-naturalist
Bill Hilton was twice named South Carolina Science Teacher of the Year and was honored as the state’s Outstanding Biology Teacher. The Charlotte Observer named him a “Guardian of the Environment” for his lifetime of work as an educator-naturalist and Discover magazine in 2008 cited him as one of “50 Best Brains in Science.” After nearly 20 years as a high school and college biology instructor, Hilton now serves as executive director of the non-profit Hilton Pond Center for Piedmont Natural History in York SC; there he conducts diverse ecology research projects and has banded more than 56,000 birds in a long-term study of avian longevity, migration, and site fidelity. He is the only scientist studying Ruby-throated Hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris) in Central America where this summer resident of the eastern U.S. and southern Canada spends the OTHER half of its year.
Tim Raney
…bald engineer guy with glasses
In real life as an engineer, I help design electrical generators and distribution equipment. I also evaluate promising power and energy technologies for this market. In my spare time, I am interested in novel ways to convert various forms of energy to an electric potential. My professional life and personal studies often complement each other. So, I’ve studied and experimented with solar-photovoltaics (PV), small thermoelectric generators and air turbine-driven generators among other concepts. Having been fascinated with magnets since I was a kid, many of my other experiments have focused on Lenz’s law, diamagnetism, magnetic field detection and measurement. The modern physics realm is also especially interesting. So, I’ve built apparatus and done experiments with high voltage discharge and x-ray tubes, deflecting electrons with magnetic fields, the photoelectric effect, diffusion cloud chambers, beta particle spectrometers and alpha particle detection. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my interests in the earth and biological sciences – mineralogy in general, studying fluorescent minerals, the weather, plants and animals.
Throughout my early schooling, I’d always supplement my science education with chemistry or electrical experiments in my basement. I was much more interested in “hands on” experimentation and not too keen on passive lectures with very little or no experimental work. However, I could get books from the library, read them and do my own experiments. I assembled circuits and made crude apparatus. My dad, grandfather and shop teacher taught me the basics of working with wood and metal. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot too. And though I wasn’t disciplined enough to keep a lab notebook, I did have quite a stack of index cards documenting various experiments by the time I left for college. Amazingly, I didn’t electrocute myself or blow up the house either. Though I think my parents kept their fingers crossed the whole time, especially after that homemade bottle rocket, still smoking, landed on the neighbor’s roof.
I’ve been happily married to a wonderful woman for 28-years. In this context, “wonderful” means listening patiently about my latest shop project or experiment without her eyes glazing over. Though I’ve learned some folks are not quite as interested in what I’m doing as you would think. Go figure. Lastly, we have a terrific daughter who’s a Park Ranger.
Greg Crawford
IT Specialist
Greg is a founder and the President and CEO of Volksdata. Greg has always been interested in, and often enchanted by, science. Such fascination was easy to develop growing up in an era when seemingly every day brought new and exciting developments in space exploration, advances in medicine, and the exploding field of digital electronics.
After receiving an undergraduate degree in chemistry from The University of Chicago, Greg began working in academic research labs, where the personal computer was first being used to help automate the acquisition of experimental data. Data that had previously been recorded using pen and paper, or at best, strip charts, was then being stored directly on computers. Sensing an opportunity, Greg started his own software company specializing in computerized data acquisition for science and engineering applications.
In the late 1990s Greg co-founded Critical Concepts, a company that developed unique software simulators based on advanced mathematical models of physiologic systems. Greg led the development team that created the SimBioSys® line of software applications, which were widely used in medical education programs in the United States and across the world.
In the last decade, Greg has refocused his energies toward creating internet-based systems for acquiring, storing, and analyzing data. In his role as a consulting programmer, he has worked on a variety of projects, ranging from earthquake monitoring systems to radiology workstations to equipment that tracks signal leakage from cable television systems.
Greg sees Volksdata as an exciting opportunity to help make the challenges and enjoyment of science more accessible to all.
