Dr. John Babson is the son of an engineer father and an English teacher mother, both of whom were generalists in a world of specialists. As such, he finds it only natural to identify himself as a generalist. This probably explains, in part, why he took up the study of physics, since it is the foundation of all the natural sciences.

An Eagle Scout, Dr. Babson is a graduate of both Marie Curie Junior High School and the Bronx High School of Science in New York City. Later, he studied upstate in Troy New York at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. There he received a B.S. in Chemistry with a minor in Cultural Anthropology, a second B.S. in Physics with a minor in Oriental Philosophy, and a Regular Army Commission as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Attending graduate school in Hawai`i, Dr. Babson studied astronomy for some years before switching back to physics. At the University of Hawai`i he earned both his M.S. and Ph.D. in physics, specialising in theoretical High Energy Weak Interaction Physics and experimental Neutrino Astronomy.

Dr. Babson has lived, studied, or worked in five different cultures (North America, Korea, Hawai`i, Japan, and now Hong Kong). As a generalist, he has many interests so finds it hard to answer the question,“what are you interested in?”

Generally interested in "what makes the world 'tick'", the question can be answered in part by looking at two categories of interest -- people and nature:

People -- especially in the form of comparative cultures and psychology (most notably based upon the unconscious and the work of James, Freud, and Jung)

Nature (not to say that people are un-natural) -- intense interest in the natural sciences to include:

Physics – everything, but especially attracted to the seminal work of Galileo, Newton, and Einstein.

Chemistry – the analysis and characterisation of minerals ala Dana.

Biology – the work of Darwin and Wallace in evolution and of the Odums, Carson, and Hardin in ecology, as well as the Deep Ecology movement.

Other areas of intense interest are Astronomy and Geology & Geophysics.

Recent publications have tended to focus on various aspects of education including ESL (English as a Second Language), the teaching of science in the classroom, and learning to learn.