John P. Allen

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John Polk Allen (b. 1929) is a systems ecologist and engineer, thinker, metallurgist, adventurer and writer. He is best known as the inventor and Director of Research of Biosphere 2, the world's largest laboratory of global ecology. Allen is a proponent of the science of biospherics. He has designed innovative projects worldwide and led extensive expeditions exploring ecology and early civilization.

Allen currently serves as Chairman of Global Ecotechnics, and a director of Biospheric Design and of Institute of Ecotechnics. He is Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, the Linnean Society, and the Explorers Club.

He studied anthropology and history at Northwestern, Stanford, and Oklahoma Universities, and served in the U.S. Army’s Engineering Corps as a machinist. He graduated from Colorado School of Mines and received an MBA with High Distinction from the Harvard Business School. In the early 1960s, Allen headed a special metals team at Allegheny-Ludlum Steel Corporation which developed over thirty alloys to product status, then he worked with David Lillienthal’s Development Resources Corporation in the U.S., Iran, and Ivory Coast.

Under the nom de plume, Johnny Dolphin, he has chronicled his personal history alongside the social history of his many destinations in novels, poetry, short stories and plays.^[1]

He is also namechecked on the recording "The Biosphere" by Reload & E621 (aka electronic music giants Global Communication)from the "Biosphere EP" (1993) on the Evolution Records label.