Burton Voorhees received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1971, working in general relativity theory where he is known for the Voorhees solutions of the Einstein equations. Two years of teaching at a private collage in Tehran, Iran led to an interest in cultural differences and cultural evolution. In 1973 he received a postdoctoral appointment in mathematics at the University of Alberta. There he branched out in research interests, working in mathematical biology, theoretical psychology, philosophy of science, and consciousness studies. In 1982 he was appointed associate professor of mathematics at Athabasca University, becoming a full professor in 1987. In 2014 he retired as professor emeritus, although continuing active research. He has published in cellular automata; simulation models of trade-off situations in complex systems; the nature of consciousness; the nature of human reason; diffusion of information on graphs; and the evolution of cooperation. Much of this work can be traced back to basic questions about human consciousness.