Confronting Issues of Scale in Socio-Environmental Systems Modeling Webinar

Sondoss Elsawah is an Associate Professor of Systems Engineering and Information Technology, and the Director of the Capability Systems Centre at University of New South Wales. Her research program focuses on understanding the behavior of large complex problems and systemic risks that arise from the interactions between social, technological, and environmental systems. She is an expert on the application of systems thinking and system modeling methodologies to support decision making and education. Building on her academic achievements, Sondoss been recognized as a thought leader in her scientific fields in Australia and internationally. For example, she is the Vice President of the Australian Society of Operations Research (ASOR) and was elected a distinguished Fellow of the Modelling and Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand (MSSANZ). Sondoss is a senior editor of the Journal of Environmental Modelling and Software (A*) and the journal of Group Decision and Negotiation (A*).

Dr. Hsiao-Hsuan ‘Rose’ Wang is in the Ecological Systems Laboratory, Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology, at Texas A&M University, USA. Her research focuses on the assessment of potential impacts of changes in climate and policy on resilience and sustainability of the system-of-interest using SES models. She has served as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board, Subject Editor (theoretical and mathematical modeling), and Associate Editor of the international journal Ecological Modelling, and currently serves as co-Editor-in-Chief of Ecological Modelling and Associate Editor of two international journals Biological Invasions and Plant Ecology. She has organized modeling symposia sponsored by the International Society of Ecological Modelling (ISEM) in the USA and Austria, and has collaborated with multinational modeling groups sponsored by the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) and by the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS), both based in the USA, and by the Lorentz Center based in the Netherlands.

Dr. Val Snow is an agroecosystem systems modeler and Senior Scientist at AgResearch in New Zealand. Her research focuses on: the development and use of models and tools to support land use policy development and implementation; innovation and sustainability in pastoral agricultural systems; and resilience in agri-food systems. She co-leads Pohewa Pae Tawhiti (loosely translated as Visualising Distant Horizons), which is developing a method that will allow decision-makers to compare land-use options for their likely effects on the four wellbeings in ways that make personal and group biases explicit and promotes dialogue and reflection on personal worldviews. Val is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Agricultural Systems and serves on the Editorial Board of Environmental Modelling & Software. Her research and leadership have been recognised with an award of a Biennial Medal from the International Environmental Modelling and Software Society in 2018 and in 2019 with a Fellowship of the Modelling & Simulation Society of Australia and New Zealand.

Dr. Volker Grimm conducts research at the UFZ in Leipzig and is Professor of Theoretical Ecology at the University of Potsdam inGermany. He is a world-renowned leading expert in the field of ecological and agent-based modeling. He has pioneered the application of agent-based modeling in ecology and contributed to its conceptual and practical development, including the development of standard formats for model description (ODD) and model development (TRACE) and a general strategy to make models structurally realistic (pattern-oriented modeling). He has been involved in the development of more than 50 ecological models, mainly in population ecology, and has contributed to the conceptual framework of ecology, concerning the concepts of stability and resilience.

Audience: 

Dr. Derek Robinson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo. Derek’s interests lie at the center of land use, land management, and the carbon cycle. He uses agent-based modeling (ABM) as an approach to integrate GIS, ecological, and human decision-making models to evaluate socio-economic contexts and policy scenarios. He specifically looks at changes to land use and land cover, ecological function and the provision of ecosystem services, and human well-being. Derek’s research team conducts research in and across social and natural sciences by collecting, analyzing, visualizing, and modeling data about real-world processes. His team’s goal is to understand those processes to derive new basic science and solutions to address society's most pressing problems. Derek served on SESYNC’s Scientific Review Committee.

External Links:
https://uwaterloo.ca/geography-environmental-management/people-profiles/derek-t-robinson
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=J7n0UQoAAAAJ
https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=8295257200
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Derek-Robinson-3/research
https://twitter.com/derektrobinson