About

Short Biography

Rick Szostak joined the Department of Economics at the University of Alberta in 1985. He served as Associate Dean in the Faculty of Arts from 2002 to 2005, was President of the Association of Academic Staff at the University of Alberta from 1995 to 1996, and President of the Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations from 1996 to 1998. His B.A. is from McGill and his PhD from Northwestern University. He was Chair of the Department from July 1, 2017 to 2022. Szostak's research interests span the fields of economic history, world history, methodology, history of technology, ethics, study of science, knowledge organization, future studies, and especially the theory and practice of interdisciplinarity. He served on the Board of the Association for Integrative Studies for over a decade and was President 2011-4. He was the President of the International Society for Knowledge Organization from July of 2018 to 2022, and now serves as Past President. He has served on the board of the Economics Society of Northern Alberta for several years and was President in 2017 and 2018. He has served on the governing councils of the interdisciplinary programs in Humanities Computing, Science Technology and Society, and Religious Studies at the University of Alberta. He has spent sabbatical leaves at the University of New South Wales and European University Institute in Florence. In 2007, he taught at the University of Alberta Faculty of Arts study-abroad program in Cortona, Italy. He has since 2020 annually taught short courses on interdisciplinarity or future studies for the College of Europe's MA in European Studies in Warsaw. He is the author of 20 books and over 100 journal articles or book chapters. His recent research agenda is described under Research