Meet Our Members

Randy Wayne teaches Light and Life, a course for nonmajors that touches upon the big questions. In the tradition of the Royal Society of London’s motto Nullius in Verba, he tells his students not to believe anything he says because he will give them enough personal experience doing experiments, making observations, and reading original texts that they will be able to make their own reasoned answers to the big questions.

Randy Wayne’s research on the nature of light has been called fringe, but he hopes that in his lifetime his heterodox theories will be considered center.

Randy Wayne was presented the Steamboat Institute 2023 Courage in Education Award in recognition of his courage and commitment in promoting open inquiry and debate, free speech, and intellectual diversity at Cornell University.  Here is a link to his speech.

Nick Guest teaches and researches about the role of accounting information in financial markets. Some of his current academic work relates to heterodoxy in investment philosophies. Specifically, viewpoint diversity in an investor’s professional and social network appears to influence the completeness of their information set, their interpretation of financial news, and the quality of their ultimate investment decisions. In his personal experience, Nick tends to learn the most when people with different beliefs come together to respectfully debate an issue, especially when one or more of the participants have ideas that are outside the mainstream, or in other words, are “heterodox.”

Daniel Sabey is  PhD student in Economics. He is interested in researching policies primarily in education and health. He is researching issues like standardized tests, child protection services, and student financial aid from angles we haven't before to get a better understanding of all sides of complex policies and their ramifications.