• Curriculum Vitae
• Contact Information
  222 Cockefair Hall
  Phone: (816)235-2816
  galeg@umkc.ed

My Ph. D. arrived in early Summer '71, but I wasn't on-campus for the ceremony: instead I was on active duty with the U.S. Army, defending our country from the Aberdeen Proving Ground Officers' Club, on the beautiful shores of Chesapeake Bay. Things have gone downhill since then. Leibnizin particular, relations between his physics and metaphysics was the focus of my dissertation. I continue trying to understand the Wily Hannoverite. Marjorie Grene directed my dissertation, and Rom Harré guided my writing while I was in Linacre College, Oxford.

Since then I've traveled a lot, seeking to carry out my heavy schedule of grueling research, lately in the South of France, unfortunately. But somebody has to do it. After all, you've got to go to where the archives are; it's not my fault that one of my main research topics of late has been the history of viticulture in the Languedoc! One of my scientist-heroes is Montpellier's J.-É. Planchon, who discovered the efficacy of using American native grapevines against the phylloxera scourge.

French history and philosophy of science got its hooks into me when I did my M.A. on Emile Meyerson. Apparently, I haven't managed to extract those hooks from me yet.

Finally, cosmology, especially its recent history, continues to compel me as well.

Over the years, UMKC as well as Wuhan University, Oxford, East Tennesse and Pitt (Center for Philosophy of Science and History of Philosophy of Science) have surrendered up some very excellent students for me to experiment with. Luckily enough, I wasn't able to completely ruin them for later life; several have gone on to be embarrassingly successful, in spite of the time they've spent with me.

In the very very early 90s, my faithful masked technical wizard and I managed to put our first steam-powered UNIX gopher on the air; since then it has grown and grown and now SCISTUD is a standard one-stop way station on the net. I also somehow managed to get entangled in HOPOS, and in '96 became Executive Secretary of the Philosophy of Science Association.

If you want to see the whole tedious professional story, here 'tis:

But my Real Life is even more important. Although I made a bad start on life I later got very lucky, and found Debbie, She Who Became The Other Doctor Gale.