News Archive

News that appeared on the Society homepage

Announcing an important change to Society members' online access to the System Dynamics Review

Membership Services at our publisher, John Wiley & Sons, has implemented changes in online access to the System Dynamics Review. This year Wiley is migrating to a new access method, so there will be a fundamental change to access to System Dynamics Review works via the publishers’ website. New registration instructions will be sent directly by Wiley to all members. Please note that this applies to all System Dynamics Society members, even if those who have set up their access in the past under the old system. (The old access arrangement will be discontinued soon.)

The email message from Wiley will have the subject line: “Wiley Online Library Activation Instructions for Society Membership Online Access”). In order to continue online access to the System Dynamics Review, each member (as they renew or join) will receive a message directly from Wiley (“wileyonlineaccess”) describing how to migrate to this new access method. Please follow the new activation instructions it contains.

In case of further query about the migration instructions or online access issues, please contact Sharon Brooker, Membership Services Specialist: sbrooker@wiley.com. Or, please feel free to contact the Society office.

Jay Forrester has been inducted into the 2011 IndustryWeek Manufacturing Hall of Fame

December 14, 2011- Jay Forrester has been inducted into the 2011 IndustryWeek Manufacturing Hall of Fame. This honor recognizes Jay’s pioneering work in digital computer development, and particularly his research that helped provide the foundation of modern supply chain management principles. The very first system dynamics model was Jay's model of GE's appliance supply chain, which then became the basis for his book, Industrial Dynamics.

The 10 Hall of Fame manufacturing executives and thought leaders are featured in this month’s issue of IndustryWeek.
In past years, inductees have included Steve Jobs, Lee Iacocca, and Joseph Engelberger, the father of robotics.
There is a profile on Jay Forrester available as well.

Congratulations to Jay!

To revisit a biography of Jay Forrester titled "The power of the bond between cause and effect: Jay Wright Forrester and the field of system dynamics" by David C. Lane, published in the System Dynamics Review Special Issue: Exploring the Next Great Frontier: System Dynamics at 50, Volume 23, Issue 2-3, pages 95–118, Summer-Autumn (Fall) 2007 go to Wiley Online Library.

SD Case Repository Now Available (2011-11-23)

It is our pleasure to announce that the first version of the SD Case Repository project is ready and on the web! The system dynamics case webpage <http://cases.systemdynamics.org/> provides a collection of consulting projects that were performed after 1990 and used system dynamics as their method.

Directed by the VP Member Services, Etiënne Rouwette, the project aims to help clarify to (potential) users how system dynamics was successfully used and applied to public and private organizations, and to promote applied system dynamics studies. This website is an ongoing project. Currently information about 36 cases is collected.

We hope to expand the collection by including more cases. If you have been involved in a consulting project, please submit a summary of your case, in less than 1,000 words, and with the proper citation to where it was originally published to office@systemdynamics.org. For a case to be accepted it must meet the following three criteria:

- It was a contracted project (with funding or in-kind support) by a private or public organization;
- It was published in a peer-reviewed journal, book, or conference proceedings, 1990 or after; and
- It reports on a fully-developed simulation modeling analysis.

We would like to thank everybody who has been helping the VP Member Services in this project including Bahri Khairul, Fleur van den Elzen, Jack Homer, David Lane, Kim Warren, David Ford, Bob Eberlein, Navid Ghaffarzadegan, and many others.

Dr. David Lane has been appointed to the editorial board of a new journal (2011-09-15)

Dr. David Lane, London School of Economics and current Society President, has been invited to join the editorial board of the new journal Operations Research for Health Care, published by Elsevier. This international journal is aimed at those working in health and health policy in universities, government departments and consultancy firms and will publish papers describing the use and evaluation of OR techniques in health, including lessons learned in engaging with policy makers, clinicians, managers, and other decision makers. Papers concerning the application of system dynamics modelling to health care are most welcome. For further information click here.

Visit to Mayo Clinic (2011-09-15)

System Dynamics Society Award Winners (2011-08-08)

Diana Fisher receives the Lifetime Achievement Award from John Sterman.	The System Dynamics Applications Award winners receive their award from Jim Lyneis.

Lifetime Achievement Award. System Dynamics Society occasionally recognizes people for making a significant contribution to a field or a practice over an extended period of time by giving them Lifetime Achievement Award. This is the only award of the Society that is based on a body of work done over lifetime and not on a single article. This year, this award was presented to Diana Fisher for her work on K-12 Education.

The System Dynamics Applications Award is presented by the Society every other year for the best "real world" application of system dynamics. The Society awarded its 2011 Applications Award to Jack Homer, Kristina Wile, Gary Hirsch, Justin Trogdon, Amanda Honeycutt, Bobby Milstein, Diane Orenstein and Lawton Cooper for their work Prevention Impacts Simulation Model (PRISM) for Chronic Disease Policymaking.

The System Dynamics Society Outstanding Service Award recognizes individuals that have, on a volunteer basis, made exceptional contributions to the Society over an extended period of time. This year the Society awarded David Andersen and George Richardson this award in grateful recognition of their exceptional volunteer contributions to the System Dynamics Society.

David Andersen and George Richardson receive the Outstanding Service Award from Jay Forrester.	Navid Ghaffarzadegan receives the Dana Meadow Award. He is also one of the winners of the Lupina Young Researchers Award.	David Keith is the runner-up for the Dana Meadow Award. He is also the winner of the Environmental SIG Scholarship Award.

The Dana Meadows Award was established in 2001 to honor the late Dana Meadows and encourage the next generation of students in the field of system dynamics. The award is given annually for the best paper by a student presented at the annual System Dynamics Conference. The Society awarded its 2011 Dana Meadows Award to Navid Ghaffarzadegan at University at Albany, SUNY, for the paper Beyond Personality Traits and Financial Incentives: Bias and Variation in Medical Practices as Results of Experiential Learning. The Honorable Mention in the Dana Meadows Award competition is David Keith at MIT for the paper Understanding Innovation Diffusion in the Presence of Supply Constraints and Price Feedback: The Case of the Toyota Prius.

The Lupina Young Researchers Award was given this year to two outstanding papers dealing with health-related topics, authored by students or recent (past 5 years) graduates and presented at the conference. Both papers were presented in plenary sessions at this year’s conference: Beyond Personality Traits and Financial Incentives: Bias and Variation in Medical Practices as Results of Experiential Learning, by Navid Ghaffarzadegan and Modeling the Dynamics of Thyroid Hormones and Related Disorders, by Oylum Seker.

Oylum Seker, one of the winners of the Lupina Young Researchers Award receives her award from Eric Pruit.	Sarah Boyar receives the Barry Richmond Scholarship Award from Joanne Egner.	Erik Pruyt receives the Best Poster Presentation Award.

The Barry Richmond Scholarship Award is presented annually to a deserving Systems Thinking or System Dynamics practitioner whose work demonstrates a desire to expand the field or to apply it to current social issues. This year’s recipient was Sarah Boyar.

The winner of Best Poster Presentation at the Poster Symposium was Exploring Demographic Shifts: Ageing and Migration in a Deeply Uncertain Dynamically Complex World, by Erik Pruyt, Thomas Logtens, Govert Gijsbers, Tim Sweijs and Stephan de Spiegeleire.

System Dynamics Professors Granted Tenure (2011-06-27)

Mila Getmansky Sherman was granted tenure at Isenberg School of Management at UMass Amherst, where she teaches corporate finance, finance theory core, and financial models in the undergraduate and graduate programs. Professor Mila's research specializes in the empirical asset pricing, hedge funds, systemic risk, performance of investment trading strategies and system dynamics. She is a graduate of MIT Sloan PhD Program in System Dynamics. For more information on her work, please visit her website.   Congratulations Mila!

Eliot Rich was granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor at the University at Albany, SUNY, where he teaches information systems design and system dynamics in the School of Business.  Eliot's thesis used system dynamics to study knowledge management programs in consulting firms.  His current research includes study of information systems, infrastructure security, and organizational dynamics.  For more information on his work, please visit his website. Congratulations Eliot!

Jeroen Struben Received the Desautels Faculty of Management Distinguished Teaching Award (2011-05-31)

Jeroen Struben is the recipient of the 2011 Desautels Faculty of Management Distinguished Teaching Award (Graduate Level). These awards, one at the undergraduate and one at the graduate level, are determined by a committee comprised of student representatives, program directors and a representative from the Dean’s office. The awards recognize outstanding teaching in their programs, superb engagement with students and contribution to the learning environment in the Faculty. The recipients will formally be presented their awards at the convocation ceremonies in June.

Congratulations, Jeroen!

Nelson Repenning Received the Jamieson Award for Excellence in Teaching (2011-05-20)

May 2011. Professor Nelson Repenning was honored this year with the Jamieson Award for Excellence in Teaching at the MIT Sloan School of Business and Management. It is given annually to two MIT Sloan faculty members and is the most important award for teaching excellence at MIT Sloan. The award is endowed by Burgess Jamieson, MIT class of 1962.

2011 Edelman Award Presentations (2011-05-09)

John Sterman writes "It's great to see system dynamics being applied to improve project management, not only to resolving disputes after projects have experienced difficulty. Congratulations to Ken, Greg and all their colleagues for this honor and for their great work."

Ed Roberts comments "As an 'SD old-timer' but long time admirer of your efforts and accomplishments in system dynamics, I congratulate you for once again being recognized for your pioneering work in proving that SD can be made to work, and work really effectively. Your original efforts in developing the project management modeling tools to a finished set of capabilities began at Pugh-Roberts and with your persistence achieved remarkable results for so many companies. It is great to see that you continue to achieve."

To view their presentation on the work, along with the work of the other finalists click here.

System Dynamics and UNEP's Green Economy Report (2011-02-22)

Videos of the Special Guest Lecture Series at the 2010 System Dynamics Conference (2010-11-30)

The Special Guest Lecture Series presentations were recorded at the 2010 System Dynamics Conference "Beyond the Crisis: Greening Society, the Economy, and the Future." The first video presentation of the series is now on the web: The Road from Copenhagen: Supporting International Climate Negotiations with the C-ROADS Simulation, by Professor John Sterman. Other video presentations will be available soon, for a list of other titles and print versions of the papers, please visit this page.

Advancement of Monetary Science and Reform Award to Professor Kaoru Yamaguchi (2010-11-30)

At the System Dynamics Conference in Seoul (July 2010), Professor Kaoru Yamaguchi presented a paper at the plenary session titled On the Liquidation of Government Debt under a Debt-Free Money System. With a modest revision, the same paper was presented at the Monetary Reform Conference in Chicago, on October 1st, for which the Advancement of Monetary Science and Reform Award was given by the American Monetary Institute.

Kaoru is a former president of the Society’s Economics Chapter and currently a professor at the Graduate School of Business, Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. He teaches macroeconomic dynamics, business system dynamics and sustainable business modeling. It is his hope that the system dynamics method will be well recognized among mainstream economists through this award.

His interview video as well as the presentation speech is available through this link (+).

Professors David and Deborah Andersen Win Fulbright Scholarships (2010-09-18)

David and Deborah Andersen are among five distinguished researchers at the University at Albany who are named Fulbright Scholars for 2010-2011. Established in 1946, the Fulbright Scholar program is designed to build mutual understanding between the people of the United States and other countries. Award recipients are chosen on the basis of academic or professional achievement as well as their extraordinary leadership potential in their research field.

David and Deborah will spend a year in Puebla, Mexico and Montreal, Canada. They will study supply chain dynamics associated with the production and distribution of coffee as a commodity within the North American Free Trade Alliance (NAFTA) region. The Andersens aim to develop a proposal for an information policy that might lead to an improvement in the market share of fair wage and environmentally sustainable trade within the NAFTA region. In addition, Deborah will study public library policy, and how language affects collection development, in both Montreal and Puebla.

David Andersen is a distinguished Service Professor in the department of Public Administration and Policy, and Informatics at the University at Albany. He is also the Jay W. Forrester award winner, the former President and the current Vice President of Finance of the System Dynamics Society. Deborah Lines Andersen is an Associate Professor in the departments of Information Studies and Informatics at the University at Albany. She is also the former Vice President of Publications of the System Dynamics Society.

Link to the full news on the University at Albany website (+).

Rector Kortmann opens European Master in System Dynamics (2010-09-02)

On August 26 the European Master in System Dynamics (EMSD) was officially opened in Bergen, Norway by Rector Kortmann and his colleague Sigmund Grønmo. The two-year Master’s programme is a collaboration between three universities: the University of Bergen, the University of Palermo and the Radboud University of Nijmegen (coordinator). From the Nijmegen School of Management, the programme is led by Prof. Jac Vennix.

In September 2010, the programme officially starts with a group of 24 students from nineteen countries. The programme was developed during the last three years, funded by a grant from the Erasmus Mundus Curriculum Development programme. Approximately 20 students per year can be admitted to the programme with this grant. The students will be selected on the basis of excellent study results and motivation. For more information, go to: http://www.europeansystemdynamics.eu/

From left to right: Prof. Carmine Bianchi (University of Palermo), Rector Sigmund Grønmo (University of Bergen), Social Science Faculty Dean Knut Helland (University of Bergen), Rector Sebastian C.J.J. Kortmann (Radboud University of Nijmegen), Prof. Jac Vennix (Radboud University of Nijmegen), Prof. Pål Davidsen (University of Bergen). Photo: Erling Moxnes.

Mark Paich, Corey Peck, and Jason Valant Win Forrester Award (2010-08-01)

The Jay Wright Forrester Award recognizes the authors of the best contribution to the field of system dynamics in the preceding five years. This year the award was presented to Mark Paich, Corey Peck, and  Jason Valant of Lexidyne, LLC for their winning work "Pharmaceutical Product Branding Strategies: Simulating Patient Flow and Portfolio Dynamics" published by Informa Healthcare; 2nd edition March 2009. More information on this book can be found at this link.

Mark Paich

Corey Peck

Jason Valant

The citation and winners' speech (delivered at the award ceremony in Seoul) will be published in full in the System Dynamics Review. Later this year, they can be found by searching the System Dynamics Review page at Wiley InterScience for Volume 26 Issue 4 (October/December 2010); abstracts are available to all; full articles are only available for members to view.

Jac Vennix
Chair, Jay W. Forrester Award Committee

Lexidyne, LLC specializes in helping clients understand and leverage key cause-and-effect relationships using the principles of System Dynamics. Combining strong facilitation skills with powerful simulation tools and over 100 years of collective System Dynamics experience, the Lexidyne team offers consulting solutions to government agencies, non-profit organizations, and several Fortune 500 companies. Headquartered in Colorado, Lexidyne works with clients across the country and around the globe.

RAM Is Born - the anniversary of Jay Forrester's patent application for the matrix core memory (2010-05-13)

An article about the anniversary of the invention of RAM is featured in the section "This Day in Tech" on the website. The title of the article is "May 11, 1951: RAM Is Born"

George Richardson receives the 2010 Excellence in Academic Service Award and the SUNY-wide Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Faculty Service (2010-05-12, updated 2010-06-02)

Professor George P. Richardson received the 2010 Excellence in Academic Service Award at the University at Albany. The Faculty and Staff Excellence Awards at the University at Albany mark outstanding performance in teaching, research, professional and classified service, librarianship, and faculty service.

The Excellence in Academic Service award is presented to members of the teaching faculty who have demonstrated leadership and service to the University over a sustained period.

Professor Richardson also recieved the SUNY-wide Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Faculty Service.

Congratulations George!

An article about the Whirlwind Computer (2010-03-08)

An article about the Whirlwind Computer, along with a photo including Jay Forrester is featured in the section "This Day in Tech" on the website. The title of the article is "March 8, 1955: The Mother of All Operating Systems."

System Dynamics in use at United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark (2009-12-10)

Jorgen Randers Awarded "Academics' Prize 2009" by Akademikerne (2009-11-16)

Jorgen Randers was recently awarded the Norwegian "Academics' Prize 2009" for his contribution to foster academic freedom, and his focus on the importance of knowledge for sound societal development.

This is the second time this prestigious prize has been awarded. For forty years Randers, presently Professor of Climate Strategy at the Norwegian School of Management, has researched environmental issues. Randers holds an MS in Physics from the University of Oslo and a PhD in Management from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was first noticed internationally as coauthor of the book Limits to Growth in 1972. Later, in the 1980s, he was President of the Norwegian School of Management. Recently he chaired the "Low Emissions Commission," appointed by the Norwegian Cabinet, reporting in 2006 on how Norway may reduce its climate emissions by two-thirds before 2050.

The prize was awarded by Akademikerne, an umbrella union for employees with academic degrees (labor organization for physicians, architects, engineers, MBAs, etc.) having in total some 150,000 members. For more information online, click here. Congratulation Jorgen.

National Geographic Magazine Features Article on the “Carbon Bathtub” and John Sterman (2009-11-16)

The work John Sterman has led at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and with Climate Interactive on mental models of climate change will be featured in the "Big Idea" section of the National Geographic Magazine, December issue.

The magazine's graphics and artwork convey these complex ideas clearly. The online article, which is already available, includes a link to the online version of C-ROADS; in print this article will be found on pages 26-29.

Please visit Climate Interactive – The Blog to see this and other posts. Congratulations to everyone involved.

System Dynamics Society Applications Award 2009 to Ken Cooper and Greg Lee for Work at Fluor Corporation (~ 2009-09-11)

The International System Dynamics Society awarded its 2009 Applications Award to Kenneth Cooper of Cooper Associates, Milford NH, and Gregory Lee of Fluor Corporation, Aliso Viejo CA. The Applications Award is presented for the best application of system dynamics, and is one of the preeminent awards in the field of dynamic simulation modeling. The international panel of judges unanimously selected Cooper and Lee’s “Managing the Dynamics of Projects and Changes at Fluor” as the best modeling application from nominees around the world. 

Cooper and Lee designed, built, tested, and implemented a model-based system to aid project management at Fluor Corporation. Fluor is one of the world’s largest Engineering and Construction firms, with 2008 revenues over $20 Billion. The US-based firm operates in every major business sector and geography. (More information about the award, link to the paper) 

John Sterman received the Jamieson Award for Excellence in Teaching (~ 2009-07-03)

June 2009. Professor John Sterman, Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management has received the Jamieson Award for Excellence in Teaching at the MIT Sloan School of Business and Management. It is given annually to two MIT Sloan faculty members for their contribution to teaching excellence. The award is endowed by Burgess Jamieson, MIT class of 1962.

Congratulations John!

Link to MIT News Page

Yaman Barlas received the 2008 best teaching award of Bogaziçi University (~ 2009-06-18)

Professor Yaman Barlas received the 2008 best teaching award of Bogaziçi University. Up to two faculty members from four main colleges are offered the award each year. Professor Barlas' affiliation is with the Industrial Engineering Department where he teaches simulation and system dynamics courses. This is the second time Yaman Barlas received this teaching excellence award, the first being in 2006.

Dennis Meadows Wins Japan Prize for Work Initiated within the MIT System Dynamics Group (~ 2009-02-16)

The Japan Prize is awarded to people from all parts of the world whose original and outstanding achievements in science and technology are recognized as having advanced the frontiers of knowledge and served the cause of peace and prosperity for mankind. Dennis Meadows is recognized for his work on "Transformation towards a sustainable society in harmony with nature."

More information:
    Citation for the award
    Link to the Japan Prize page
    Energy Bulletin - Dr. Dennis Meadows wins prestigious Japan Prize

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