Board Members

Lowell Gustafson

Lowell Gustafson is currently a member of the IBHA Board, IBHA Treasurer, Associate Editor of the Journal of Big History, and editor of Origins: The Bulletin of the IBHA. He earned his PhD in Government and Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia in 1984 and has been on the Political Science faculty of Villanova University since 1986. Among his publications are “Big History and Political Science: Science, the deep past, and the political” in Craig Benjamin, Esther Quadackers, and David Baker, eds, The Routledge Companion to Big History, 2020; “SETI and Big History: Challenge and Extension,” Journal of Big History, IV(2); and Lowell Gustafson, David Blanks, Barry Rodrigue, co-editors, Science, Religion, and Deep Time, Routledge, forthcoming. He finds the development of an evidence based narrative of a 13.8 billion year series of developments from the big bang to present, along with reasoned expectations about the future, to be one of the great achievements of humanity. He highly values associating with others who share a fascination with integrating fields of knowledge and the meanings that a universe of knowledge offers humanity.

Max Barnett

Max Barnett is an Associate Lecturer at Macquarie University Law School in Sydney, Australia. He currently teaches and aids in curriculum development in the fields of law and world history. He writes on the fields of cliodynamics, sustainability, human rights, development economics, world history, and futures studies. Under the supervision of Professor David Christian Max completed his PhD entitled The Fork in the Road: Mapping Alternative Responses of Human Societies to the Threat of Collapse in 2024.

Max is part of several global research groups that focus on how understandings of Big History can be used to inform approaches to present and future global challenges. He maintains a small, informal network of Big History colleagues in Australia with the aim to strengthen the field’s place in Oceania. His recent pedagogical work has focused on designing imaginative learning exercises that can spread the wonder of the universe across disciplines and to students of varying levels of age and ability. Actively engaging with the local community, Max runs local history tours to bring stories of the deep past to those who would not normally engage with formal education.

Andrey Korotayev

Andrey Korotayev is an anthropologist, macro-historian, comparative political scientist, demographer and sociologist at HSE University, Moscow and Eurasian Center for Big History and System Forecasting, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences. He engages in the study of universal evolution and Big History, as well as the analysis and forecasting of modern processes, especially, in the Middle East and Africa. Recently, he co-authored The Big History of Globalization (Springer Nature, 2019) and co-edited The 21st Century Singularity and Global Futures: A Big History Perspective (Springer Nature, 2020), as well as Navigating Complexity in Big History. Exploring Periodization Across Cosmic and Biosocial Dimensions (Springer Nature, 2025). He is especially interested in the detection (and possible mathematical description) of general patterns of the universal evolution, which appears to be only possible in the Big History perspective. He is also enthusiastic about the Big History’s potential to bring together people from different disciplines and with different perspectives, as well as to transform the education system.

Paul Narguizian

Paul Narguizian is a Professor of Biological Sciences and Science Education at California State University, Los Angeles. His research examines how information processing, energy flows, and increasing complexity shape biological systems, with a focus on integrating these concepts into undergraduate biology curricula. He explores both genetic and cultural informational inheritance as drivers of evolutionary and societal change, and develops courses that frame the genetic code as an algorithm of life while drawing parallels to cultural algorithms. His teaching emphasizes building students’ mental immunity and digital literacy, enabling them to recognize pseudoscience and navigate disinformation. Inspired by the work of David Christian, Brian Swimme, and Fred Spier. Narguizian designs pedagogical strategies that highlight the dynamic interplay of matter, energy, and information across scales, helping students see biology as part of a larger story of emergent complexity.

Lucy B. Laffitte

Lucy B. Laffitte, Ph.D., M.Ed. teaches science in context—from the Big Bang to the future—through outdoor experiences, classroom instruction, and online learning. A writer, broadcaster, and curriculum developer, she has shared science with diverse audiences in print, on air, and on the web. Her work includes founding an award-winning environmental radio program, creating conservation ecology certificate programs, and producing digital learning resources for public television.

Lucy holds a bachelor’s degree in natural science from the University of Oregon, a master’s in adult education and instructional design, and a Ph.D. in natural resources from North Carolina State University. She has designed and taught courses for museums, universities, conservation institutes, public television, and schools across the United States. An active leader in the International Big History Association, she has served as President, Vice President, Secretary, and Conference Chair. Her career reflects a lifelong commitment to connecting people with science, history, and the environment through innovative education and media.

Bridgette Byrd O’Connor

Bridgette Byrd O’Connor is a historian and educator specializing in Big History and world history. She received her DPhil in the history of science from the University of Oxford and taught at the secondary and university level in the United States and abroad, developing innovative courses that bridge history, science, and the humanities. A long-time contributor to the Big History community, she has developed curricula, including a revised Big History Project course for younger students, with the OER Project and Crash Course World History, with the goal of creating educational resources that make Big History accessible to students and the public. Her most recent work includes producing the Unknowns podcast with David Christian, which focuses on areas of Big History that remain mysterious. She has served as a mentor for Big History and world history teachers seeking to integrate global and interdisciplinary perspectives into their classrooms. Her work reflects a passion for connecting the deep past with contemporary challenges, helping learners see humanity’s place within the broader story of the universe.

Todd Duncan

Todd Duncan combines a research background in physics & astronomy with experience teaching science concepts to a wide range of audiences. His education includes a Ph.D. in Astronomy & Astrophysics from the University of Chicago and Physics degrees from the University of Illinois and Cambridge University. His core interest is understanding the fundamental nature of reality as best he can, while helping others discover their own ways to explore deep questions. Todd’s publications include Your Cosmic Context: An Introduction to Modern Cosmology (co-authored with Craig Tyler and published by Pearson Education, 2009), and “Meaningful Mystery,” a chapter in Science, Religion, & Deep Time, edited by Gustafson, Rodrique, & Blanks (2022). He teaches at Pacific University in Oregon.

Aidan Wong

Aidan Wong, a graduating Ph.D. candidate at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, specializes in interdisciplinary learning and sustainability education. His research focuses on integrating Big History into sustainability education, with presentations at international conferences. Alongside his university role, he collaborates with the Hong Kong Academy for Gifted Education to teach Big History and Sustainability to gifted secondary students. Aidan has authored journal papers, news articles, and two course handbooks: “Big History: A Scientific Origin Story” (2019) and “Introduction to Sustainability for the 21st Century” (2020), in partnership with the Hong Kong Scholars. Recognized as a local pioneer in advancing Big History, he seeks to strengthen connections among local Big Historians and foster collaboration between local, regional, and global Big History initiatives.

Hirofumi Katayama

Hirofumi Katayama is a Professor of Environmental Economics and the Director of the Oberlin Big History Movement (OBHM) at J.F. Oberlin University in Tokyo. He introduced the first formal Big History course in Japan in 2016, covering 13.8 billion years of history and inaugurated the Big History Seminar. In 2019, he organized the inaugural International Big History Symposium in Japan. His commitment to advancing Big History continued with the establishment of the interdisciplinary Big History Collegium in 2020. Katayama’s research centers on challenging anthropocentrism in mainstream Big History, proposing an alternative perspective known as Buddhist Big History.

Shweta Sinha Deshpande

Shweta Sinha Deshpande is Director (Associate Professor) at the Symbiosis School for Liberal Arts, Symbiosis International University, Pune. An archaeologist and anthropologist with over fifteen years of research experience, she brings an interdisciplinary perspective to the study of human history and culture. Her work explores how interactions between individuals and cultures—ancient and modern—shape societies, with a particular interest in how education can address contemporary social issues by uncovering often-unrealized cultural assumptions.

At Symbiosis, she has developed and taught innovative undergraduate courses such as Understanding India, The Idea of Art, and Comparative Religion, From Ape to Alexander and Beyond, while also leading efforts to establish an undergraduate program in anthropology. Her research highlights how even small artifacts, like pottery fragments, can illuminate the social, economic, and cultural dynamics of the past. Currently, her work focuses on globalization and its influence on migration, religion, education, and development. She is also engaged in international collaborations, including teaching and research partnerships with DePaul University in Chicago.

Stephen Satkiewicz

Stephen Satkiewicz is an independent scholar whose research areas are related to Civilizational Sciences, Social Complexity, Big History, Historical Sociology, Military History, War studies, International Relations, Geopolitics, as well as Russian and East European history. He is the Book Review Editor for the academic journal Comparative Civilizations Review.  He served as the editor for the International Society for the Comparative Study of Civilizations (ISCSC) newsletter from 2016-2018. He produces a podcast for the New Book Network on books concerning topics in his research area.

Staff

Donna Tew | Office Coordinator

Donna Tew has been the IBHA Office Coordinator since 2014.  She manages the data base for the IBHA membership and organizes the bi-annual conferences.  Donna owns a travel business and has extensive experience in office management, including budgets, schedules, travel arrangements, and computer programs.  Prior to 2014 she had been an Administrative Assistant of 32 years for a high school in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Heathe Kyle Yeakley | IT Director

Heathe Kyle Yeakley was born and raised in Oklahoma, where he discovered paleontology on an elementary school field trip in the early 1980’s. It fascinated him to think that Earth had existed for so long that entire ecosystems populated with strange and wonderous creatures had come into being, existed for millions of years, collapsed, and, with their demise, laid the foundation for the cycle to repeat.

In college, he pursued technology as a profession but kept paleontology as a primary hobby. In 2000, he began to volunteer and the then-brand-new Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. Over three years, he accrued hundreds of hours of volunteer work interpreting ancient life exhibits for the public while working full-time and working towards a technology degree.

Today Heathe holds degrees in telecommunications and network management. He is a senior Linux DevOps Engineer and provides technology services to financial companies operating on the American East Coast.

When not looking for ways to apply his technology skills to explore deep time, he can be found watching courses by the Teaching Company and playing with his dogs.