Roy Gardner was born in Peoria, Illinois and graduated summa cum laude from Bradley University. He served as an artillery officer in the U.S. Arm-Bielefeld, Mannheim, AmsterdamVietnam, winning a Bronze Star. He earned his Ph.D in economics from Cornell University in 1975. He has been at Indiana University since 1983, and holds the title of Chancellors' Professor Economics. He is also Senior Fellow of the Center for European Integration Studies, Bonn, Germany., spoils system
Dr. Gardner specializes in the theory of games and economic behavior. He has applied game theory to such topics as class struggles, draft resistance, alliance formation, monetary union, and corruptions of his research has been on human dimensions of global environmental change, which has received over a dozen years of national Science Foundation support. Much of his research appears in this book. Prior to coming to Indiana, Dr. Gardner was on the faculties of Iowa State and Northwestern. He participated in the first U.S.-France Exchange of Scientists (1979-80) to the Center for Mathematical Economic Planning (CEPREMAP) in Paris, and was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Bonn (1985-86). He has also been a research fellow at the universities of , the Institute for Advanced Studies (Vienna) and the National University of Ukraine (KYIV). He has served on the National Research council, Panel for Social and Behavioral Sconces (1989-92), is a member of eight professional societies, and serves as referee or consultant to thirty-six scientific journals, eighth publishers, and four national science foundations.