Roger D. Masters is Research Professor at Dartmouth College, Nelson A. Rockefeller Professor of Government, Emeritus at Dartmouth College and President of the Foundation for Neuroscience and Society.   After undergraduate study at Harvard (B.A., 1955) and service in the Army, Masters completed graduate work in political philosophy at the University of Chicago, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on Rousseau under the direction of Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey.   The central theme of Masters' work is the philosophic and scientific exploration of the role of human nature in political and social behavior. In political philosophy, his studies have emphasized Rousseau and Machiavelli and the implications of contemporary biology for understanding human nature. Recently, his research has focused on cognitive neuroscience, the nonverbal behavior of leaders, and the effects of toxic metals (such as lead and manganese) on human behavior.

Education:

• University of Chicago, 1959-61 (Ph. D., 1961)
• Institut d'Etudes Politiques, Paris, 1958-59 (Auditor)
• University of Chicago, 1957-58 (M.A., 1958)
• Harvard College, 1951-55 (A.B., Summa cum Laude, 1955)

Employment:

• Research Professor, Dartmouth College (1998-present)
• President, Foundation for Neuroscience and Society (1998- present)
• Chair, Executive Committee, Gruter Institute for Law and Behavioral Research (1995- present)
• Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
  • Nelson A. Rockefeller Professor of Government (1992-98),
  • Emeritus (1998 -
  • Chairman (1986-89)
  • Associate Professor - Professor (1967-1998)
  • (1961-67: Instructor to Assistant Professor)
• Visiting Lecturer, Yale Law School (1988)
• Cultural Attache, U.S. Embassy, Paris, France (1969-71)
• U.S. Army (1955-57: Private to SP3)

Awards:

• Director d'Etudes Associé, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France (1986)
• John Sloan Dickey Third Century Professor of Government, Dartmouth College (1979-1985)
• John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (1967-68)
• Joint Yale-S.S.R.C. Fellowship (1964-65)
• Fulbright Fellowship to France (1958-59)

Professional Activities:

• General Editor, Gruter Institute Reader in Biology, Law, and Human Social Behavior (1992-)
• Board Association for Politics and the Life Sciences (1983-)
  • Vice-Chair (1991-)
• Co-Chairman, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Seminar on Politics, Ethics, and Economics of Health Care (1975-79)
• Fellow, Institute of Society, Ethics, and the Life Sciences [Hastings Center] (1974-78)
• Chairman, Editorial board, "Biology and Social Life" Section, Social Science Information (1974-present)
• Co-Editor, "Animal and Human Ethology" Section, Social Science Information (1971-74)
• Chairman, Franco-American Commission on Educational Exchange [Fulbright Commission] (1969-71)
• Chairman, Save-the-Park Committee, New Haven, Conn.
  (1965-66)

Publications:

• Fortune is a River: Leonardo da Vinci and Niccolò Machiavelli's Magnificent Dream to Change the Course of Florentine History (Free Press, 1998).
• Machiavelli, Leonardo and the Science of Power (University of Notre Dame Press, 1996 - paperback 1998)
• General Editor, Gruter Institute Reader: Biology, Human Social Behavior, and Law (Computerized Database for Customized Books of Readings; New York: McGraw Hill [Primis])
• Co-editor, with Christopher Kelly, Rousseau's Social Contract, with Discourse on Virtue of Heroes, Geneva Manuscript and Fragments,Collected Writings of Rousseau, Vol. 4 (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1994)
• Co-Editor, with Michael T. McGuire, The Neurotransmitter Revolution (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993)
• Beyond Relativism: Science, Philosophy, and Human Nature (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1993)
• Co-Editor with Margaret Gruter, The Sense of Justice (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992)
• Co-Editor with Glendon Schubert, Primate Politics (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991).
• Co-Editor with Christopher Kelly, Rousseau's Second Discourse. Polemics, and Political Economy; Collected Writings of Rousseau, Vol. 3 (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1993)
• Co-Editor with Christopher Kelly, Rousseau's First Discourse and Polemics; Collected Writings of Rousseau, Vol. 2 (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1992).
• Co-Editor with Christopher Kelly, Rousseau, Judge of Jean-Jacques; Collected Writings of Rousseau, Vol. 1 (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1990).
• The Nature of Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989)
• Co-Editor with Margaret Gruter, Ostracism: a Biological and Social Phenomenon (New York: Elsevier Science Publishers, 1986)
• Editor, Rousseau's Social Contract, with Geneva Manuscript and Political Economy (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1978)
• The Political Philosophy of Rousseau (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968)
• The Nation is Burdened: American Foreign Policy in a Changing World (New York: Knopf, 1967)
• Editor and co-translator, Rousseau's First and Second Discourses (New York: St. Martin's, 1964)
• Over 150 scholarly articles and journalistic essays in English, French, and German.

Areas of Expertise:

• Integration of biological and natural science with the study of human behavior in the social sciences and the history of political philosophy.
• Political philosophy (with particular focus on the works of Machiavelli and Rousseau)
• Legal implications of recent work in the biological sciences
• Cross cultural analysis of nonverbal behavior.
• Influence of the media in politics.
• Application of cognitive neuroscience to human social behavior
• Brain Biochemistry and criminal violence.

Keywords:

• Political philosophy
• Nonverbal behavior
• Biopolitics
• Human Ethology
• Human Nature

Commercial Relevance

• Design and conduct of concensus procedures ("scientific adversary procedures") for the evaluation of controversial issues concerning risk, reliability or tort
• Human nature and social behavior: applied problems of designing organizations in terms of likely emotional and cognitive responses.