Summary

About

Biography

Dr. Lombardo is an award-winning teacher and educator with over forty years of professional experience in college teaching (online and in-person, graduate and undergraduate); academic curriculum and program development; dean and academic administration; workshop development and facilitation; faculty department chair and clinical mental health supervisor; personal and educational staff development; and writing and publication.

Additionally, he is an editorial board member of the Journal of Futures Studies and reviewer for the Futures journal and has served on the editorial board of the World Future Review. He was also a professional member of the World Future Society, and he is presently a member of the Association of Professional Futurists. Additionally, he is an Advisory Board member of The Wisdom Page, Communities of the Future, the Lifeboat Foundation, the Foresight Education and Research Network, and the Acceleration Studies Foundation. He was one of the key early developers of the WFSF Pedagogical Resources in Futures Studies.

Of special note, through an extensive series of publications and presentations, Dr. Lombardo has developed a holistic theory and educational approach for enhancing “future consciousness,” which he defines as ”the total integrative set of psychological abilities, processes, and experiences that humans use to understand and deal with the future.” Synthesizing futurist concepts, philosophical ethics, and theory and research in psychology and wisdom, he has created and taught many workshops and semester-length courses on enhancing this capacity, all of which have received outstanding reviews by attendees.

Together with his wife, Jeanne, Dr. Lombardo has created one of the most informative and well-respected futurist sites on the Web: Center for Future Consciousness. He has developed and taught all the individual components of an integrative and holistic futures education program (twenty-five educational modules) that covers future consciousness, wisdom, and character virtues; evolution and the nature of progress; the future of science, technology, and the environment; contemporary trends and theories of the future; and the future of psychology, education, society, religion, ethics, and culture. Many of the educational modules (as video presentations) can be accessed on the CFC website.

Dr. Lombardo’s books have been praised by numerous world-recognized futurists, and have received laudatory reviews in many journals and professional magazines (including Futura, Futures, Future Survey, Singularity Hub, and Human Futures). His companion volumes The Evolution of Future Consciousness and Contemporary Futurist Thought, published in 2006, have been described as “awesome,” “heroic,” “brilliant,” “encyclopedic,” “a masterpiece,” and “a maturing of future studies.” These volumes provide a detailed psychological study of the human capacity to think about the future and historically trace this capacity from prehistoric to contemporary times. His next books, Wisdom, Consciousness, and the Future and Mind Flight: A Journey into the Future, both released in 2011, have been described as “profound, deeply important, and truly remarkable.” The former book brings together many of his published articles on wisdom, future consciousness, ethics and virtue, creativity, and the future evolution of the human mind. Mind Flight chronicles the development of his philosophical and futurist thinking set within a personal and intellectual narrative that spans forty years. His newest books include: Future Consciousness: The Path to Purposeful Evolution, winner of the 2017 Network Book Award, described as a “masterpiece” and “truly breathtaking,” “a deeply wise book for a wise future…challenging us to take our everyday thinking to a whole new epic scale.”; Science Fiction: The Evolutionary Mythology of the Future Volume One – Prometheus to the Martians (2018), hailed as “a brilliant piece of work” and “a ‘must-read ’ in the study both of science fiction and the future;” and The Pursuit of Virtue (2019), “A brilliant, timely, erudite exposure of the shallow, divisive individualism of modern life.” Reviews on the above books can be accessed on the CFC website book section.

Dr. Lombardo assumed directorship responsibility for the Wisdom Page website when its founder, Copthorne Macdonald, passed away in late 2011. From 2012 to 2020, Dr. Lombardo published an online newsletter and journal, Wisdom and the Future, sponsored by both The Wisdom Page and the Center for Future Consciousness, featuring his own editorials essays and numerous contributions from writers and researchers interested in all facets of wisdom and the future. Beginning in 2020, the name of the newsletter was changed to Future Consciousness Insights, with its primary emphasis on the future, future consciousness, and science fiction.

Dr. Lombardo is a graduate of the University of Connecticut (double-major in psychology and philosophy) and University of Minnesota (Ph.D. in psychology with a minor in philosophy of science) and a graduate fellow of Cornell University, where he studied ecological psychology with the world renowned J.J. Gibson. Over the course of his career, he has served as: Psychology faculty at Indiana University NW, College of DuPage, Rosary College, Central Connecticut State College, and the University of Connecticut; Clinical Therapist at Tri-City Mental Health Center; Chief Psychologist and Educational Director at John Madden Mental Health Center; Professor and Dean of Forest Institute of Professional Psychology; Chair of the Psychology Instructional Council at Maricopa Community Colleges; and Futurist Faculty at the University of Advancing Technology. His first book, published in 1987, The Reciprocity of Perceiver and Environment, was the best-selling volume in Lawrence Erlbaum ’s Resources in Ecological Psychology, has been translated into Japanese, and has been republished by Routledge Publishing – Psychology Library Editions – in England in March, 2017.

Source: Center for Future Consciousness

Web Links

• Webpage

Videos

International Moon Day w Tom Lombardo

(58:33)
By: FUTEE – FREE TV

In this episode of In Focus, we speak with Tom Lombardo – SciFi extraordinaire – he explains our fascination with the Moon and goes through SciFi history to show how we view the Moon in a variety of ways.

Center for Future Consciousness

The Center for Future Consciousness was co-founded by Tom and Jeanne Lombardo in 2007. The Center offers a unique synthesis of psychology, philosophy, futures studies, and science fiction in its educational offerings. We have conducted workshops, seminars, and weekend educational retreats in the Netherlands, Finland, Brazil, Mexico City, London, Berlin, Paris, Vancouver, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, and numerous other cities in the United States. Tom Lombardo has published thirteen books (thus far) combining consciousness expanding topics and themes with personal and practical applications.

Many other futurists and educators have contributed to the ongoing development of the Center, including notably Victor Motti (Director of the World Futures Studies Federation), Tery Spataro (Producer of the Science Fiction Webinar series), Nicole Yox (Website Design Specialist), Alan Ross (Philosopher), Dr. Paul Elsner (Chancellor Emeritus of the Maricopa Community Colleges), Dr. Vernon Smith (Higher Education Administrator), Charles Cassidy (Wisdom Researcher), Raymond Todd Blackwood (Educator), Professor Robert Brem, Rick Smyre (Director of Communities of the Future), and in Memoriam Dr. Wendell Bell (Yale University), Janice Dorn (M.D., Ph.D.), and Copthorne Macdonald (Founder of The Wisdom Page).