Steven Gullberg certainly is starstruck.
The 2002 Master of Liberal Studies graduate can be found climbing over shrines and crawling through caves high in the Peruvian Andes, examining their orientations with regard to the sun, moon and stars while conducting field research for his doctoral degree.
Astronomy is a lifelong passion for Gullberg that began in his boyhood during the ‘60s as he watched every televised launch of NASA’s fledgling spaceflight program. By the age of 14, he was paying for his first flight lesson with money he earned from a paper route. He celebrated his 16th birthday by making his first solo flight in a Cessna 150.
Gullberg, a commercial airline pilot from St. Louis, Mo., was interested in earning a master’s degree. With his research interests in ancient astronomy spanning several areas, he discovered OU’s College of Liberal Studies would allow him to design a highly individualized level of specialization. The online delivery format best fit his needs, and the interdisciplinary aspect of the program was appealing.
“OU’s assets were ideal in both its talented staff and the Bizzell Library’s world-leading History of Science Collections,” Gullberg said. “I took full advantage of them while discovering that online learning is what you make of it. Even though this was a distance learning program, I worked with my professors on campus regularly.
“Through the College of Liberal Studies, I was able to learn about ancient astronomical concepts, spherical astronomy, Babylonian astronomy, Greek and Roman astronomy, ancient astrology, ancient calendrical systems and time keeping, Mesopotamian culture and a bit of the ancient Akkadian language.”
Utilizing computer analysis, he isolated the likely reference system of the Babylonian astronomical diaries and learned that the majority of these observations likely took place within two seasonal hours of either sunset or sunrise. He also identified several astronomically related errors in the diary transliterations of cuneiform to Akkadian.
“Interdisciplinary scholarship became my pastime, and I thoroughly enjoyed learning everything I possibly could,” he said.
Gullberg’s resulting research and thesis, The Babylonian Astronomical Diaries: A Contextual Survey and Graphical Analysis of their Implied Reference System, was highly recognized and he represented OU in the 2003 Midwestern Association of Graduate Schools Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award competition.
With his master’s degree completed, Gullberg entered a doctoral program at James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville, Queensland, Australia. JCU has a growing astronomy department that includes research in archaeoastronomy, his specialization.
“While I could have elected to spend my time in libraries researching a different topic, I’ve chosen instead to forge a research program centered upon field research in the Peruvian Andes,” he said.
Gullberg also presented a paper accepted for the VIII Oxford International Conference on Archaeoastronomy and Astronomy in Culture held in Klaipeda, Lithuania.
The College of Liberal Studies master’s degree program had a profound effect on Gullberg.
“I learned to love learning for the sake of learning, and I have embarked upon a lifelong quest for knowledge that has led me to my current doctoral studies in the cloud forest of Peru,” he said.