Keynote Speaker

Dave Snowden, MBA

FOUNDER AND CHIEF SCIENCE OFFICER AT COGNITIVE EDGE; 
FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRE FOR APPLIED COMPLEXITY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WALES

David John Snowden is a Welsh management consultant and researcher in the field of knowledge management and the application of complexity science. He has pioneered a science-based approach to organizations drawing on anthropology, neuroscience, and complex adaptive systems theory known as the Cynefin framework. His work at Cognitive Edge, a Singapore-based management-consulting firm he founded, is international in nature and assists government and industry with complex issues relating to strategy, organizational decision-making and sense-making. Snowden has previously worked for IBM, where he was a Director of the Institution for Knowledge Management and founded the Cynefin Centre for Organizational Complexity; during this period he was selected by IBM as one of six on-demand thinkers for a world-wide advertising campaign. Prior to that, he worked in a range of strategic and management roles in the service sector.

Keynote Title:

Managing complexity (and chaos) in times of crisis: a field guide for decision-makers inspired by the Cynefin framework

Facilitators (Listed in Alphabetical Order)

Before and during Complexity Weekend, Facilitators will lead interactive sessions, mentor teams, provide Complexity Science knowledge/experience, create impactful connections, introduce problem-solving frameworks, tooling, relevant data sets, and more. The Facilitator's mission is to guide the "how" of the Weekend, by enabling teams to embrace diverse perspectives, interface with system stakeholders to gather feedback, draw inspiration from the Complexity literature, and ultimately to help teams accomplish their goals together (whether it be a research proposal, a business plan, or another outcome). Many teams that form at a Complexity Weekend event go on to do great things together, and stay connected to our Applied Complexity community of practice through our monthly online events.

Felipe Abrahão, PhD

Postdoctoral Researcher at the National Laboratory for Scientific Computing (LNCC), Brazil

Information Theory • Theory of Computation • Mathematical Logic • Complex Networks • Epistemology

Felipe is a postdoctoral researcher at the National Laboratory for Scientific Computing (LNCC), Brazil, under the supervision of Artur Ziviani. His current research project aims at theoretical analyses on emergent information, complexity, and randomness in networked complex systems. 

Shaun Applegate-Swanson

LEAD DATA SCIENTIST AT CLOUDKNOX SECURITY; Co-FOUNDER AT RESEARCH MENTORS; CO-FOUNDER AT COMPLEXITY WEEKEND

Community Organizing • Full Stack Data Science • Data Center Security • Physics • Complex Thermostatistics

Shaun leads a team of full-stack (Python/Scala) data scientists and engineers at CloudKnox Security, which has developed access management scoring and outlier detection systems to enforce the Principle of Least Privilege throughout data centers worldwide. We are hiring! A Complexity Science enthusiast, Shaun co-founded Complexity Weekend to help empower teams to learn Complexity by doing while working to solve the world's toughest problems together. His personal research interests involve combining Complexity Science with Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics axioms to peek at fundamental properties of emergent phenomena.

Jaclyn (Jax) Asuncion, ACMA, CGMA

CO-CREATOR aT Love is Unlimited; FORMER ASSOC. DIRECTOR AT WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM (ECONOMICS AND FINANCE PROGRAMME)

Accounting • Finance • Storytelling • Education • Collaboration • Wellbeing

Jax mothers a toddler, loves accounting and finance, and instigates fun projects. She is trained in political economy and business administration and has worked in the charity, commercial, and government sectors in Asia, the United States, and Europe. Her projects include climate innovation, unconventional learning, and bringing accounting and finance to The People. She now resides in London and emanates energy universe-wide.

Probal Banerjee

Co-founder AND CEO at Depicentre Consulting

Design-led Innovation • Transformative and Emergent Leadership • Executive Coaching • Futurism

Probal is the co-founder and CEO of the design-led collective, Depicentre Consulting. He works on the interfaces of business, learning, design, analytics, innovation, and storytelling. With leadership experience across seven countries strengthening his ability to manage cross-cultural and cross-functional virtual teams in complex organizations, he has a passion for aiding content- and culture-driven organizations in making economic, social, ecological, and educational impact.

Jon Alexander Cinman

FUTURIST; INDEPENDENT ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CONSULTANT

Public Policy • Tech • Complex Adaptive Systems • Sense-making • Economic Development • Wellness

Jon Alexander Cinman is a futurist and works where public policy and technology intersect. Jon seeks to drive a safe and prosperous technological revolution. He studied Economics and is in an Executive Master of Public Administration program at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He’s done management consulting and international economic development, and resides in the US. Jon’s thesis is ‘Building and Facilitating a Unified Healthy Human-Digital Ecosystem’.

Timothy Clancy

Chief mulleteer AT INFOMULLET.COM; FOUNDER AND CEO AT DIALECTIC SIMULATIONS CONSULTING; PHD CANDIDATE AT WPI University

Consulting • Problem-Solving • System Science • Violence • Instability

Timothy’s work ranges from sophisticated simulations of violence & instability to systems thinking for business. His blog, InfoMullet.com, provides more context for complex current events and his consulting firm Dialectic Simulations Consulting helps clients ranging from Fortune 1000 to government agencies and military commands. Timothy has an MSc from WPI in Insurgency Dynamics & Simulation Science and is ABD PhD there studying the life-cycle of violent non-state actors using system dynamics.

Richard J. Cordés

DEPLOYMENT STRATEGIST AT COGSEC; NONRESIDENT RESEARCH FELLOW AT THE ATLANTIC COUNCIL; PARTNER AT REMOTOR CONSULTING GROUP

Social and Behavioral Engineering • Organizational Dynamics • Pedagogy

R. J. Cordés is a researcher focused on Gray Zone Warfare, Knowledge Management Systems, and Sensemaking. He contributes research to a variety of working groups and committees across DoD, IEEE, and the Private Sector working on topics like social and behavioral engineering, systems engineering, data standards, intelligence analysis, and decentralized learning systems.

Michaela Emch, MBA

FOUNDER, ADMINISTRATOR, AND DIRECTOR AT ECLOSIONS

Communication • Marketing • Biomimicry • Interculturality • Interdisciplinarity

Michaela is a communication and marketing specialist, translator, cultural mediator, biomimicry practitioner, safari guide, keen naturalist and biology enthusiast. She is looking for links where people have not yet connected the dots. Her Masters in International Relations, and the capacity for abstraction gained from her MBA in Aviation Management, help her handle the multicultural and interdisciplinary impact of communication across diverse fields of application.

Jeff Emmett

Research Lead at the Commons Stack; Comms Lead at BlockScience

Token Engineering • Complex System Simulation • Computer-Aided Governance • Commons Empowerment

Jeff has a background in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo, and has been one of the early advocates for the establishment of safe and ethical Token Engineering in the web3 space. Along with Michael Zargham & Griff Green, he co-founded the Commons Stack to build out a toolkit of modular components that can be used for polycentric governance of DAO ecosystems. He is involved in multiple open research initiatives into novel resource allocation and governance patterns like bonding curves and conviction voting that facilitate a future of algorithmic policy and Computer Aided Governance.

Bernardo Furtado, PhD

PHD RESEARCHER AT INSTITUTE FOR APPLIED ECONOMIC RESEARCH (IPEA) AND NATIONAL COUNCIL OF RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT (CNPQ)

Agent-based Modeling • Public Policy • Spatial Analysis • Urban Economics • Python

Bernardo Alves Furtado is a curious learner who has studied architecture, urbanism, geography and economics to become a python agent-based modeler tackling public policy issues. He is a tenured researcher and professor at a government-attached think-tank based in Brasilia, Brazil. He helped put together a comprehensive international Modeling Complex Systems for Public Policies book. Currently, he is finishing the open source model PolicySpace2: modeling real estate and policy.

Daniel Ari Friedman, PhD

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER AT UC DAVIS; CO-FOUNDER AT REMOTOR CONSULTING GROUP; CO-FOUNDER AT COMPLEXITY WEEKEND

Ants • Evolution • Geometry • Participation • Active Inference

Daniel is a postdoctoral researcher with primary focus on the distributed physiology and evolutionary genomics in the eusocial insects. He is also interested in topics related to remote teams, cognitive security, and open science. Daniel has been involved in Complexity through located events and online communities of practice such as Complexity Weekend and previously, the Stanford Complexity Group.

Michael Garfield

HOST AT FUTURE FOSSILS PODCAST; SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGIST AND PODCAST PRODUCER AT SANTA FE INSTITUTE 

Science Communication • Evolutionary Biology • Paleontology • Philosophy of Science

Paleontologist-Futurist Michael Garfield is devoted to helping navigate our age of accelerating weirdness and helping cultivate the curiosity and play we'll need to thrive in it. As host and producer of Future Fossils Podcast and the Santa Fe Institute's "Complexity" Podcast, Michael acts as interlocutor for a worldwide community of artists, scientists, and philosophers — a practice that feeds his synthetic and transdisciplinary "mind-jazz" essays, music, and fine art.

Jenn Huff, PhD

LECTURER AT UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON; CURATORIAL ASSOCIATE AT BURKE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY AND CULTURE

Archaeology • Anthropology • Human Evolution • Technology Change • Human-Environment Interaction

Jenn Huff is a quantitative anthropologist and archaeologist who works on deep time questions about human evolution, human migrations into new landscapes, exchange networks, risk and uncertainty, technology change, and human-environment interactions. She is currently working on a book that looks at human evolution and recent cultural perspectives to explore how humans cooperate; and what that means for us in the past, present, and the future.

Monica Kang

Founder and CEO at InnovatorsBox

Entrepreneurship • Creativity and Innovation • Facilitation • Diversity • Education

Monica Kang is the Founder and CEO of InnovatorsBox® and the Author of 'Rethink Creativity'. She is transforming today’s workforce through the power of creativity. She helps companies around the world rethink culture, leadership and team development by making creativity practical and relatable regardless of industry or job title. Prior to InnovatorsBox®, Monica was a nuclear nonproliferation policy expert.

V. Bleu Knight, PhD

INDEPENDENT RESEARCH CONSULTANT

Optimization • Data Science • Agent-Based Modeling • Bioinformatics • Neuroscience

Bleu is interested in solving complex problems using data sources that are large and diverse. Her PhD research leveraged informatics to understand the biological identity of neural cell subtypes. More recently, she has been using augmented intelligence and agent based modeling to solve problems at industry scale. She has also been exploring how the exploitation of environmental resources establish networks for information transmission.

Richard James MacCowan

FOUNDER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR AT BIOMIMICRY INNOVATION LAB

Biomimicry • Ecology • Design • Systems • Cities

Richard is an award-winning designer with a background in behavioral economics and real estate, with further study in urbanism. He has worked with multi-national organizations around the world on complex challenges, in real estate finance, urbanism, asset management, and product design. Richard rarely gets bored and finds common links between a host of subjects from art, science, nature, and design. Based in York in the UK, Richard spends his quiet time with his wife and two young boys.

Victoria Mellor

POSTGRAD RESEARCHER AT MASSEY UNIVERSITY

Complex Adaptive Systems • Culture • Inter-agency Operations • Bioethics • Risk Management • Defence and International Security

Victoria specializes in projects involving complex cultural engagements with both complementary and competing objectives, particularly in high risk and time sensitive scenarios. She is interested in how cultures change and redefine themselves, and how people can erode and stretch defined cultural boundaries, leading to psychologically-led shifts in behavior. Victoria trained in the Defence and Health Sciences, and lectured in the Biomedical sciences for a number of years. She is an avid researcher, working in numerous countries in highly-challenging environments. A keen solo traveller, she has worked and travelled in over 20 countries. She has a passion for languages and music, as well as adventure sports and the wilderness. 

Prahlad G. Menon, PhD

VISITING FACULTY AT UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH; CEO AND CHIEF DATA SCIENTIST AT QUANTMD

R • Machine Learning • AI • Biomedical Engineering • Medical Imaging • Image and Signal Processing • Biostatistics

Prahlad is an engineering professor and data scientist, with cross-industry experience leading and successfully executing on data-science projects. He has served on the faculty of Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Texas at San Antonio. His experience includes data science consulting in a range of real-world projects from predictive maintenance and financial modeling to healthcare supply chain management and algorithmic analysis of medical images for diagnostics, surgical planning and image-guided surgery. He has advised 10+ graduate students and instructed graduate and undergraduate coursework in biomedical engineering, scientific computing, and algorithmic image and signal processing to 100's of students in an academic career that has resulted in over 100 peer-reviewed publications in the literature. Dr. Menon is also the chief data scientist of an award-winning boutique big-data and AI consulting practice.

Alexandra (Sasha) Mikhailova

PhD Candidate at UC Davis (Neuroscience Program)

Neuroscience • Microscopy • Communication • Education • Collaborative Drawing 

Alexandra has a background in translational neuroscience studying brain injury in early development. She is now pursuing a PhD examining how immune molecules regulate the proper establishment of connections in the brain. Her research is inherently interdisciplinary, and she hopes to bridge even more fields through Free Energy thinking and collaborative drawing.

Nancy Mills, MBA

SMB investor at Sunday Capital

Consumer Insights • Change Management

With over 15 years of global business experience and an MBA from Thunderbird, Nancy Mills has used methods based on Complexity Theory from Cognitive Edge in consumer experience insights, regional branding, and change management projects. She has well-rounded experience with every facet of marketing - strategy, execution, advertising,  and data analytics - and both traditional and digital media. She has led global teams, and created positive results across many industries, including healthcare, energy, management consulting, specialty raw materials, and has extensive experience in consumer products.

Andréa Naccache, MBA

researcher and consultant; founder at thegreatunlock.com

Philosophy of Law • Ethics and Political Philosophy • Responsibility • Algorithms

Andréa is a psychoanalyst and a doctoral student in philosophy of law at the University of São Paulo, with an MBA in finance. As a finalist of the Jabuti Literature Award for the book "Brazilian Creativity: Gastronomy, Design, Fashion", she lectures in Brazil and abroad. Her research ties innovation and justice around Gregory Chaitin's concepts of complexity and randomness. This research has been taken to conversations at Stanford and the Sorbonne.

Krzysztof (Kris) Paruch

RESEARCHER AT RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR CRYPTOECONOMICS AT UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS, VIENNA

Mathematical Modeling • Cryptoeconomics • Distributed Systems • Incentive Design • Mechanism Design

Kris researches Cryptoeconomics and Complex Systems Engineering. With a formal education in technical-economic Mathematics at the University of Technology in Vienna and five years working experience in banking and software integration, he understands the financial and regulatory background at the intersection of real-world and cryptoeconomics. His focus at the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at WU Vienna is the development of token engineering research streams, the creation of network design and incentive mechanism structures, and valuation and modeling of crypto assets. His specializations are agent-based economic modeling, game theory and optimization methods, as well as monetary and environmental policy economics.

Diamantis Sellis, PhD

COMPLEX SYSTEM MODELER AT COSMO TECH

Modeling Industrial Complex Systems • Bioinformatics • Evolution • Population Genetics • Genomics

Diamantis Sellis is a complex systems modeler at CosmoTech. He has more than 10 yr of research experience in bioinformatics, genome complexity and population genetics. The past 4 years he started working in the software development industry modeling complex systems. He has studied biology and holds an MS in Bioinformatics from Athens University, Greece, and a PhD in evolutionary biology from Stanford University, US.

Siddhant Shrivastava

Researcher At iTrust Centre for Research in Cyber Security AT Singapore University of Technology and Design

Cyber-physical Systems Security • Extended Reality • Distributed Teams • Workforce Training • Telerobotics

Siddhant applies (emerging) technology to connect anything that computes, controls, and networks across scales. More specifically, he works on ensuring the security/safety/service of cyber-physical systems. These systems span everything from country-scale critical infrastructures to cybernetic implants inside our body, and affect all of us. He has worked in space, finance, design, robotics, and learning/training.

Palma Strand, JD

Professor of Law, Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, Creighton University; Co-Founder and Research Director, Civity

Civity • Social • Relational • One-on-one • Culture

Palma is a Professor of Law in Creighton University’s Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program. She is also co-founder and Research Director of Civity, a national non-profit that works with people to build relational infrastructure necessary for communities of belonging.  She is a member of the Steering Committee of the Omaha Council for Racial Justice and Reconciliation and a lead facilitator of Conversations About Race and Belonging.

Celine Ta

Systems Innovation Hub, New York

Systems mapping • Agile • Sprint • Design 

Celine is an innovation consultant with roots in systems thinking and human-centered design. She works with both nonprofit and for-profit organizations and has applied the systems lens to complex problems of global health, philanthropy incentives, and homelessness and economic insecurity in the US.

Sudebi Thakurata

FACULTY MEMBER AT SRISHTI INSTITUTE OF ART, DESIGN, & TECHNOLOGY; CO-FOUNDER AT DEPICENTRE CONSULTING 

Complex Systems Thinking • Design • Learning • Leadership • Futurism

Sudebi is a narrative designer, creative facilitator, educator, futurist & writer. She designs experiences, engagement, and environment that allow people to think and dialogue. By making their thinking and interaction visible to others, she helps people discover their own designs and narratives using different modes and media. She is focused on social, environmental, and cultural issues, inter-weaving design thinking, imagination, complex systems thinking, pedagogy, crafts, visual and performing arts, oral history, ethnography, and research to co-create inclusive possibilities.

Deborah Tien

Innovation & Regenerative Collaborator at CoPlantation

Catalysis • Governance • Emergence • Socio-technology • Fun

Deborah has a background co-creating strategy, community, and systems at the intersection of regenerative networks, participatory design, and technology for impact. She lived in Arusha, Tanzania for almost 5 years, building an ecosystem for inclusive innovation in Africa at Twende - a Tanzanian design hub for local-scale innovation - first as Director of Development, then as Executive Director. Deborah is currently working on a handful of participatory governance projects at local and global levels, that are somehow inter-dependent and co-evolving.

Meredith Tromble

PROFESSOR (INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES; ART AND TECHNOLOGY) AT SAN FRANCISCO ART INSTITUTE

Art • Environment • Collaboration • Interdisciplinary • Compassion

Meredith Tromble is an artist and writer who makes installations, drawings, and performances. Her curiosity about the links between imagination and knowledge has stimulated a number of collaborations with scientists, including a long-term residency at the Complexity Sciences Center, UC Davis.

Kerry Turner

PhD student at University of Hull & Freelance Consultant at KnowLimiTs

System Dynamics • Operational Research • Modeling

Kerry Turner is passionate about creating high performing systems.  She acquired her skills in systems dynamics during her 36 year career as an international management consultant. For the last decade or so, she has applied systems dynamics to every aspect of her life including horsemanship, relationships and health. She has also worked with small organisations who share her values. Kerry is also a part time PhD student in the Centre for Systems Studies at the University of Hull. Her research explores the potential for systems thinking to revolutionise the learning of students.

Vanessa Weinberger, PhD

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER AT GEMA (GENOMICS, ECOLOGY, AND ENVIRONMENT) AT UNIVERSIDAD MAYOR CHILE

Human Macroecology • Sustainability Science • Socio-ecological Systems • Networks • Systemic Thinking

Ecologist that acknowledges the complexity of natural systems, and uses different theoretical tools for unraveling key properties of the desired studied system. Lately, deeply interested in socio-ecological systems, evaluating the drivers structuring human societies and scenarios (based on energy and material use) for achieving (nature-based) sustainability.

Jesse Woo

INDEPENDENT RESEARCHER

Law • Policy • Privacy • Robotics • Design

Jesse Woo is a privacy and technology lawyer and researcher. He was formerly the privacy lead at Aleada Consulting and recently completed a Fulbright Fellowship in Japan focused on international data flows and privacy regulation. He has also written about the intersection of complexity, robotics, and urban public spaces.

Michael Zargham, PhD

Founder at BlockScience

Mathematics • Economics • Engineering • Networks • Governance

Michael Zargham earned his PhD in Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 2014 where he developed novel methods for decentralized dynamic resource allocation in networked systems. Zargham is the founder of engineering research and design firm BlockScience, which specializes in estimation, decision, and control of complex societal and economic systems. He is affiliated with the Vienna University of Economics and Business in the Interdisciplinary Institute for Cryptoeconomics.

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