Lecturer in Ecological Design and Systems Thinking
Mark Stimson completed his PhD in Social and Political Thought at the Global Centre for Advanced Studies in 2020, with a focus on systems thinking and social change. He is currently preparing his dissertation for publication in book form.
Teaching and Research
His work moves between theory and construction. Over nearly two decades at Maharishi International University he developed and taught the sustainable design and construction concentration — courses spanning natural building, high-performance green building, tiny houses, and ecocities — alongside a flagship core course, Tools & Materials for Sustainable Living, and a Critical and Creative Thinking Seminar. He taught the practicum component of the MA in Sustainable Living, and later chaired the department housing the first undergraduate degree in sustainable living in the United States, overseeing curriculum development, faculty recruitment, and facilities expansion.
As Sustainability Coordinator he co-authored the university’s first Climate Action Plan, submitted to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, and conducted its benchmark campus carbon inventory. He designed and implemented energy programmes across more than 100,000 square feet of campus buildings, including geothermal systems, lighting upgrades, and building envelope work. He is a certified geothermal heat pump system designer through the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association.
Projects and Practice
Outside the university, Mark has co-managed a solar- and wind-powered mobile medical clinic, charging station, and water station delivered to the Standing Rock/NoDAPL encampment; sailed critical water filtration equipment to citizens of Cuba; and bought and restored an abandoned farm-to-school greenhouse now growing food for at-risk residents of Jefferson County, Iowa. He is a partner in Big Blue Fairfield, a community centre for music, art, science, and technology, and is restoring a nineteenth-century post-and-beam barn as a community food-preparation and preservation facility built around human-scale technologies.
He works on ecological restoration across three regions: a prairie restoration in Jefferson County, Iowa; a pilot desert restoration in Brewster County, Texas; and a wetland preserve in Charlotte County, Florida.
Beyond the Academy
Mark is an avid outdoorsman, amateur naturalist, sailor, designer, builder, and tinkerer. He is a marine painter who has exhibited in galleries from Maine to Iowa, and served a five-year apprenticeship building and repairing uilleann pipes. He has managed and held partnerships in a range of enterprises since 1978, among them Stimson Brothers Boatworks and Big Blue Ventures.
Selected Publications
- A Matter of Gargoyles — a novel, self-published2001–2010
- MIU Climate Action Plan — co-author2008
- A Sustainable Pedagogy for MIU — internal publication
- Doctoral dissertation, currently in preparation for publication in book form
Education
- PhD, Social & Political Thought — Global Centre for Advanced Studies, Dublin2020
- MA, Sustainable Living — Maharishi International University2017
- MA, Eastern Philosophy (Vedic Science) — Maharishi International University2015