He is the Chief Knowledge Scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Seattle, and visiting professor of systems science at Binghamton University.

Cliff Joslyn studied at Oberlin College and received a BA in Cognitive Science and Mathematics, with High Honors in Cybernetics, in 1985.

Joslyn's research interests extend from "order theoretical approaches to knowledge discovery and database analysis to include computational semiotics, qualitative modeling, and generalized information theory, with applications in computational biology, infrastructure protection, homeland defense, intelligence analysis, and defense transformation".

[4] The organisation was initiated in 1989 by Joslyn, Valentin Turchin of the City College of New York, and Francis Heylighen from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium.

They especially emphasize methods for representing semantic information, and hybrid methodologies combining statistical, numerical, and quantitative with symbolic, logical, and qualitative techniques".