The founder and Director of the Center for Archaeoastronomy and the Editor-in-Chief of ARCHAEOASTRONOMY: The Journal of Astronomy in Culture.

Dr. John B. Carlson, a radio and extragalactic astronomer by training and an expert on Native American astronomy specializing in studies of Pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. The art, iconography, calendar systems, and hieroglyphic writing of the Maya and Highland Mexican civilizations are his particular interests, and the "archaeology of pilgrimage" is his current special research interest. Research into ancient and contemporary Maya calendars and the "2012 Phenomenon" have been areas of expertise for more than thirty years. In this context, he was the organizer of the first academic session on "2012 Phenomenon" studies held as part of the Oxford 9 International Archaeoastronomy Conference (IAU Symposium 278) in Lima, Peru, in January, 2011. In 2005 and 2006, Carlson was Kislak Fellow in American Studies at the John W. Kluge Center for Scholarly Research at the U. S. Library of Congress where he completed a long-term comprehensive study of "Maya Flasks and Miniature Vessels." Dr. Carlson is Senior Lecturer in the University Honors College, University of Maryland - College Park, where he teaches courses in Astronomy, Anthropology, and the History of Science. You can reach him at tlaloc at umd.edu

Dr. McCluskey also is the contact person for editorial contributions and is the Book Reviews Editor for our publications. Dr. McCluskey has a Ph.D in the History of Science and is a Professor at West Virginia University, teaching courses on Medieval Europe, History of Science, and astronomies of traditional cultures. He currently is spending a year conducting research at the School of Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Leicester. For more information about his work, please visit his personal website. You can contact him at scmcc at wvu.edu.