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Dr. Allen Tough (b. 1936) is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto. He has made important contributions to the seemingly disparate, but overlapping fields of Adult Education, Futures Studies, and SETI. Linking these fields together is Dr. Tough's longstanding concern with the long-term future of humanity in the cosmos, and humans' search for meaning and purpose on personal, societal, and global levels. He taught at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto, for 33 years, retiring from teaching in 1997.

Born and raised in Toronto, Dr. Tough earned his MA from the University of Toronto, and PhD from the University of Chicago. He first made a name for himself with the groundbreaking books The Adult's Learning Projects and Intentional Changes, based on his thesis research.

In 1981, Dr. Tough expanded his areas of study to include the fields of Futures Studies and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI. His 1991 book Crucial Questions about the Future, brought these themes together. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Dr. Tough continued to pursue these lines of questioning, both through publishing and presenting papers at European SETI conferences, SETI League symposiums, and the World Space Congress.

In 1996, figuring that the development of the World Wide Web presented new possibilities for contact with intelligent extraterrestrials, Dr. Tough issued an online "Invitation to ETI."

In 2006, Allen Tough initiated The Billingham Cutting-Edge Lectures, a series of annual lectures to be held at the meetings of the International Academy of Astronautics SETI Permanent Study Group. That same year, Allen Tough was awarded the Malcolm Knowles Self-Directed Learning Award, and was inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame in Dallas, Texas.

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