In 2014, Dr. Margaret Boone Rappaport established The Human Sentience Project, LLC with astronomer and priest Christopher Corbally, S.J. As co-founders of the organization, they focus much of their effort on conducting research in human cognitive evolution, neuroscience, space science and ecotheology. Dr. Rappaport lends her expertise by giving lectures across the United States, writing journal articles and authoring and editing books.
Dr. Rappaport has contributed six books and a myriad of papers to her field thus far, including the book, “Capital Crime; Black Infant Mortality in America” (1989, Sage). She next published “Capital Cubans; Refugee Adaptation in Washington, DC” (1989, AMS Press). In 1992, she edited “Computer Applications for Anthropologists” (1992, Wadsworth) with John J. Wood. On ResearchGate, a journal piece on low birthweight remains her highest cited paper (“Social and Cultural Factors in the Etiology of Low Birthweight among Disadvantaged Blacks”, 1985, Social Science and Medicine).
After a career as a contractor in research and management support to federal and state agencies as president of Policy Research Methods, Incorporated, Falls Church, VA, from 1986 to 2006, she again began publishing. Rappaport and Corbally’s first book was for young people, “Space Science and Astronomy Theatre” (2017, Archway). Their next joint project was to apply evolutionary science to the emergence of human religious capacity. The resulting book, “The Emergence of Religion in Human Evolution,” was published in 2020 by Routledge. In 2021, she edited “The Human Factor in the Settlement of the Moon: An Interdisciplinary Approach” (Springer) with K. Szocik. As of this writing, Dr. Rappaport is working with three co-authors on another book, titled “The Science and Religion of Space Settlement; Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Theology Intersect.” At present, she and Christopher Corbally remain hard at work on an unusual book that combines narrative prose and the theory of neuroscience and paleoneurology, entitled “The Story of Bo; A Narrative Neuroscience of Moral and Religious Capacities.” Additionally, the pair have been exploring the field of space exploration and settlement on the moon and Mars, and their articles concerning neuroplasticity in spaceflight and space neuroscience have been published multiple times.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Rappaport lectured in urban sociology, medical anthropology, physical anthropology and the anthropology of women at Georgetown University, The George Washington University, and at Prince George’s Community College. She spent 15 years in academic teaching. She was a frequent writer, speaker, and consultant between 1975 and 2018, in the Washington, DC area, and then worldwide in such places as Cracow, Poland; Assisi, Italy; Lyon, France; and London, England.
Dr. Rappaport began her studies in the field of biology and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from The George Washington University in 1968. She switched to anthropology in graduate school and earned a doctorate at The Ohio State University in 1977. She received a Praxis Award from the Washington Association for Professional Anthropologists in 1982. She is a past chairperson of the ethics committee of the American Anthropological Association, as well as a past chair of the nominations committee of the Society for Applied Anthropology.
When asked what motivates her, she replied, “To whom much is given, much is required.” Dr. Rappaport attributes much of her success to the influence of her father, Arthur Robinson Boone, and to the support of anthropologist Dr. Erika Bourguignon at The Ohio State University. In the coming years, Dr. Rappaport intends to continue publishing books in her areas of expertise.