Photo | Name | Title | Bio and Location | Term |
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Roelien Goede |
President
2022-2023
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Working as programmer, I soon realized that people do not know what they want, or that is how I perceived it from my functionalist training. Later I learned that multiple perspectives enriches one's understanding and that a model is only one version of the proposed system. I was introduced to systems thinking by the book: "Computers in Context" By Dahlbom and Mathiassen and immediately understood how my thinking was post-functionalistic. I worked for 10 years in a group of systems thinkers in the Netherlands and then I was granted the opportunity to attend the very last edition of the Lugano Summer school presented by Peter Checkland and Werner Ulrich in 2012. Ulrich's message of "Giving a voice to the affected" was something I could relate to being from South Africa - a country known for "not listening to the affected". I also learned that in the corporate world there are involved and affected parties and I'm striving to find technical computer science solutions to design problems that are inherently flexible enough to support different perspectives. I met Gerald Midgley in the group of systems thinkers in the Netherlands and he invited me to ISSS in 2014 in Washington when he was President of the ISSS.
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2020-2023 |
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George Mobus | Past-President |
Affiliation/location - Associate Professor Emeritus, University of Washington Tacoma, School of Engineering & Technology, Tacoma WA, USA.
Official Website: http://faculty.washington.edu/gmobus/ with links to some of his publications.
Email contact: gmobus@uw.edu
Bio:
George taught computer science and engineering at UW SET. He retired from teaching but continues active research and writing in the field of systems science and engineering. His major research interest is in developing a general systems analysis approach, particularly for the human social system as a subsystem of the whole Earth system with the objective of deciphering what a more viable social system would look like.
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2022-2023 |
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Michelle Friend | President-elect |
Born in Canada 1966.
Education: Studied philosophy at McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Intellectual development: Specialized first in philosophy of logic and mathematics, then on the philosophy of the logical foundations of the relativity theories. Recently I have been engaged in the philosophy of the environment and policy decisions that are in line with ecological economics. Stuart Umpleby introduced me to second-order cybernetics, systems science and Karl Muller introduced me to second-order science. Most recently I have been also working in the philosophy of chemistry - the environmental politics of chemical practice (research, industrial development, cultural attitudes). I developed an multi-criteria decision aide called the Institutional Compass to make the evaluation. We shall be using the compass "on the ground" in a three year project (2022 - 2025) in Mexico to re-establish the natural hydrological system and appropriate the river for the community. Employment 2001 - present: Teaching in the philosophy department at George Washington University, Washington D.C. 3-year Chaire d'Excellence Université de Lille 01/2020 - 01/2023. |
2021-2023 |
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Jennifer Makar |
VP Administration
Managing Director
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Canada
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Pam Buckle | Secretary |
Pamela Buckle lives in Brooklyn, New York. She is an Associate Professor of Management at Adelphi University. As a researcher, she collaborates with international researchers investigating the cognitive and emotional processes involved in systems thinking, and systemic perspectives on the anthropocene. Pamela publishes in systems, management, psychology, education, and project management journals. She is on the Executive Committee of the International Federation for Systems Research, is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Bristol’s Systems Centre in the UK, and is a member of the editorial board of the Bertalanffy Center for the Systems Science journal: Systems. Connecting Matter, Life, Culture and Technology. As a management educator, Pamela teaches organizational behavior, leadership, teamwork and group dynamics. She has worked in the not-for-profit, private, and public sectors in Canada.
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VP Funds | Vacant | |||
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Gary Smith | VP Systems Practice |
Based in the UK. Is a senior expert systems engineer at Airbus, an systems of systems architect/technical manager and is engaged on enterprise transformational programmes.
He is an INCOSE ESEP and helped to establish their PM-SE Integration Working Group. He is also the senior editor for the SEBOK - section 2: System Foundations. He is our INCOSE liason.
Has also studied and published a series of papers attempting to understand biosystem complexity and the underlying patterns in disease conditions. "Cancer, Inflammation and the AT1 and AT2 receptors", "Angiotensin and Systems Thinking - Wrapping your mind around the big picture", Architectural Parallels between engineered and biological defence and Security". Most recently he was a coauthor of a paper in frontiers of medicine - "The Lung, the Heart, the Novel Coronavirus, and the Renin-Angiotensin System; The Need for Clinical Trials"
With Brigitte Daniel Allegro they published "Exploring the branches of the system landscape" - the branches being the attitudes of the systems thinker, and the roots being the system concepts that they think about.
Has co-lead two IFSR conversations "Unity in diversity" and "What is system science?". Is currently helping to establish an architecture for system science, to facilitate a shared orientation to establish a learning system for our knowledge about systems and knowledge about how we engage with systems.
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Haider Al-Shareefy | VP Membership and PR |
I was born and raised in a war-torn country (Iraq) and ended up being a refugee a decade ago. Having experienced social, political turmoil, wars and conflicts, I have come to realise the value of systems literacy in social integration.
I describe myself as a Holistic Systems Engineer. My bachelor degree was in aerospace systems engineering. I am currently doing a PhD in Safety Assurance of AI based systems.
Technical achievements wise, my journey in Systems Engineering started with project management and business development for a construction company in London. I also worked in a Systems Engineering consultancy firm supporting Bombardier Transport with their flagship Rolling Stock platform (Aventra), covering work package management, V&V and parts modification design.
I have a patent grant and 2 more patents are in progress with UK IPO. Then went to venture into setting my own business. Currently, I have a start-up community interest company whose purpose is to develop Humane Technologies, starting with an objective social networking medium (Herospace Universe) where people interact and socialise with a purpose, helping themselves and helping others, unlike purposeless social media systems that led to a great number of social disasters around the globe due to following the mindset of “move fast and break things”.
My favourite hobbies currently involve intellectual and philosophical growth in understanding the real purpose of humanity, walking, travelling (travelled across 2 continents so far, planning to travel more), Outdoors, and Latin Dancing like Bachata, Kizomba, and Salsa.
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Olaf Brugman | VP Conferences |
VP Conferences for the upcoming conference in the Kruger National Park in South Africa, themed Professional Practice for Professions.
Dr Olaf Brugman is an active member of the ISSS, taking part in the mini-symposia regularly. He was a speaker at the ISSS conference in Vienna, in 2017. He is working in the financial industry in Europe, focusing on sustainability and systemic change. His special interest in the initiatives to develop systems practice and the development of a unifying framework will be beneficial in the program development of the meeting in terms of the selected theme. He is well known in the wider systems community for his systems-related articles on various popular platforms.
He understands the challenges of developing countries. For example, his work as president of the Roundtable for Responsible Soy (RTRS), a global member-based multistakeholder organization uniting business, civil society and research organizations. For RTRS, he also initiated and led a systems practice-based strategy program. Second, he has extensive experience in capacity-building on sustainable development in member-based co-operative banking systems in Brazil. In 2015, USAID named him an expert in best practices and standards on international land governance, promoting environmental justice, respecting international rights regarding access to food and land in his private sector work. These experiences are transferable to the South African environment. It is advantageous for the VP conferences to have a global perspective to promote the South African conference in terms of awareness of challenges experienced by international visitors. He is an executive director at Rabobank, a Netherlands-based global co-operative financial institution focused on food and agriculture, fulfilling the role of global head of sustainability policy, risk and dialogue. He holds an MA in public administration from Twente University (1990, NL) and a PhD in policy sciences from Nijmegen Business School (Radboud University Nijmegen, NL). He is married and lives in The Hague, the Netherlands. |
2022-2023 |
Vacant | VP Research and Publications |
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Daniel Ari Friedman | VP Education |
As of 2021 I am a postdoctoral human in Davis, California, working with Prof. Brian Johnson (UCD) and Prof. Tim Linksvayer (Texas Tech). Our research is related to distributed physiology and evolutionary genomics in eusocial insects. With groups such as COGSEC I am also working on research related to knowledge management and cognitive security. Since 2019 I have been a co-organizer and facilitator at Complexity Weekend community of practice. |
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David Rousseau | Chair, Board of Trustees and BoT Representative to ISSS Board |
I am based in the UK, where I am Director of the Centre for Systems Philosophy, and a Visiting Fellow of the Centre for Systems Studies in the University of Hull. |