John P. Allen, Date of Birth
TweetJohn P. Allen
systems ecologist and engineer, metallurgist, adventurer and writer
Date of Birth: 
About John P. Allen
- John Polk Allen (born May 6, 1929, Carnegie, Oklahoma) is a systems ecologist, engineer, metallurgist, adventurer, and writer.
- Allen is a proponent of the science of biospherics and a pioneer in sustainable co-evolutionary development.
- He is the founder of Synergia Ranch, and is best known as the inventor and director of research of Biosphere 2, the world's largest vivarium and research facility to study global ecology.
- Biosphere 2 set multiple records in closed ecological systems work, including degree of sealing tightness, 100% waste and water recycle, and duration of human residence within a closed system (eight people for two years). Allen was co-producer and dramaturge of Theater of All Possibilities, an internationally touring theater company, and has over two dozen publications to his credit (many under his nom de plume, Johnny Dolphin): half scientific, the remainder in poetry, plays, essays, short stories, novels, and autobiographical fiction.
- He currently serves as chairman of the Institute of Ecotechnics, an international project development and management company. A fellow of the Linnean Society, the Royal Geographical Society, and the Explorer's Club, Allen has led multiple ecological expeditions, with a focus on the ecology of early civilizations, in Nigeria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tibet, Turkey, India, and the Altiplano.
- He has been called a "swashbuckling frontiersman" and an "eccentric mix of scientist, artist, entrepreneur, and adventurer" by author David Jay Brown in the book Voices from the Edge (1995).
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