Keeping Up With Sheldon and Denise Greaves

Former SAS board member and E-Bulletin editor Sheldon Greaves was recently seen decked out as Benjamin Franklin during a meeting of Henley-Putnam University leadership. Sheldon, who is co-founder and Chief Academic Officer of the university explains that, "The occasion was our annual curriculum conference or 'Spookfest' where we bring in our top instructors in intel, counterterrorism, and protection and have them review our courses and help construct new programs. Playing Mr. Franklin, I was introducing the featured speaker at our opening reception, Dr. Alex Rose, author of Washington's Spies. The Story of America's First Spy Ring, who spoke on the Culper spy ring during the American Revolution."

Figure 1. Dressed as Benjamin Franklin, SAS member Dr. Sheldon Greaves addresses the annual Henley-Putnam University curriculum conference. Photograph by Denise Greaves.

Like SAS founder Shawn Carlson, Sheldon holds an earned Ph.D. Shawn's is in nuclear physics, and Sheldon's is in Near Eastern studies. Sheldon is an accomplished linguist and has learned more than a dozen languages. He has been active in non-traditional education and research and once taught an early online course on "The Dead Sea Scrolls" at the beginning of the online era in 1992. Sheldon's university profile notes that he is an expert in the history, language, literature, religion, and material cultures of the Near East. He teaches courses in religious radicalism and covert organizations at Henley-Putnam University.

Sheldon stays active in amateur science, and his major ongoing project is The SAS Citizen Scientist Observatory Registry, which he described at the 2006 SAS Citizen Science Conference and in a companion article in The Citizen Scientist (03 November 2006). The Observatory Registry is now in development.

Sheldon's wife Denise holds a Ph.D. in Classics and teaches courses on Comparative Religion and History of Intelligence from Antiquity Through Medieval Times at Henley-Putnam University. Denise's university profile notes that she is an expert on communications, geographic science, and travel in the ancient world, and she has taught courses on the history and politics of ancient Greece and Rome at Stanford University. She has written articles on music, theater, and architecture for the most recent edition of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Regular readers of The Citizen Scientist will recall Denise's stunning close-up photographs of dragonflies that she made during a research project on the insects that she conducted at a pond she and Sheldon frequented when they resided in Rhode Island (see here, here and here).

Figure 1. Dr. Denise Greaves displayed some of her spectacular dragonfly photographs during the poster session at the 2006 Citizen Science Conference. Photograph by Forrest M. Mims III.

Recently Sheldon and Denise visited the Rhode Island pond, and Sheldon sent word about its status.

"There is some additional commercial building going up nearby, which has removed some of the trees that some dragonfly and bird species used for roosting and/or nesting.  But on the other hand, we saw some surveyor's tape tied to foliage around our pond and others to the north that had the words 'delineated wetland' stamped on it. We hope this means that 'our' pond has been placed off-limits for further development, but we need to find out more.

"The other problem the pond has had comes from kids on ATVs that roar around the place and sometimes plow through the pond . . . . We saw some deep rutting in a shallow end of the pond that indicates this has gone on, although technically it's illegal for them to be there.

"Otherwise, the water level was a bit on the low side, and the cattails seemed to be more numerous than usual, but we even saw a couple of dragonflies despite the lateness of the season."

Forrest M. Mims III