The UAA Complex Systems Group presents “Biocomplexity in the High Arctic” with Dr. Jeff Welker, Director of UAA’s Environmental and Natural Resources Institute (ENRI).

Biocomplexity in the Arctic is a research program funded by the National Science Foundation’s Office of Polar Programs, which is intended to build an understanding of the linearity, interactions and emergent properties of terrestrial ecosystems in the high latitudes with a focus on biological, physical, and chemical dynamics. Dr. Welker’s presentation will highlight the development of this program and the research findings from a set of field studies in northwest Greenland.

This podcast was recorded on Feb. 12, 2010.

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Dr. McCue is an assistant professor in Virginia Tech’s Department of Aerospace and Ocean Engineering and an affiliate to both the Virginia Tech’s Department of Engineering Education and the Virginia Center for Autonomous Systems (VaCAS). Her research interests are in nonlinear and chaotic vessel dynamics including capsize, parametric rolling and sea-based aviation operations largely involving analytical and numerical approaches including computational fluid dynamics. This work has been supported by ONR, NSF, CSC and QinetiQ.

This seminar is sponsored by the UAA Complex Systems Group. This podcast was recorded on Jan. 22, 2010.

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The UAA Complex Systems Group presents Dr. Ron Eglash. Self-organization has become an increasingly important phenomenon in both the natural sciences and engineering. Self-assembly of carbon “bucky balls” are critical to nanotechnology; self-organizing swarms of insects are modeled in biology and robotics, and so on. But recursive loops in which things govern themselves are also foundational to society. Democracy is the people governing the people. Social networks in both physical life and Internet domains arise by self-assembly, and some decentralized indigenous societies build self-similar architecture. Can self-organization lead us to a more just and sustainable future?

Dr. Eglash, Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic University, holds a B.S. in Cybernetics, an M.S. in Systems Engineering and a Ph.D. in History of Consciousness, all from the University of California. A Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship enabled his field research on African ethnomathematics, which was published by Rutgers University Press in 1999 as “African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design.”

Recorded: Friday, September 19, 2008

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The UAA Complex Systems Group presents Dr. Ron Eglash: “Complexity in Indigenous Knowledge.” Indigenous knowledge is often associated with simple tasks, counting to 100 or making a box, but such stereotypes ignore the rich conceptual and material structures that have resulted from the co-evolution of native cultures and their environment. African fractals, Native American cybernetics, and indigenous nanotechnology are just some of the complex hybrids that emerge when we open up the space for more sophisticated models.

Dr. Eglash, Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic University, holds a B.S. in Cybernetics, an M.S. in Systems Engineering and a Ph.D. in History of Consciousness, all from the University of California. A Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship enabled his field research on African ethnomathematics, which was published by Rutgers University Press in 1999 as “African Fractals: Modern Computing and Indigenous Design.”

Recorded: Thursday, September 18, 2008

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