Dr. Kostas Alexandridis is a research scientist with the CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems at Davies Laboratory, Townsville. He is studying the interactions and coupling between human and natural systems and their implications to decision-making across multiple scales and knowledge domains in Australia and internationally. His research emphasizes the use of advanced and cutting-edge dynamic modelling and simulation techniques and the study of cognition, information and knowledge flows. His most recent work involves understanding sustainability in marine-based livelihoods in collaboration with a number of remote and indigenous communities across Australia and the Pacific. Kostas received his Ph.D. from Purdue University in USA, where he acquired experience on modelling land use change, sprawl dynamics, and cognitive attitudes to change across a range of local, sub-regional and regional landscapes. He has worked with communities, planners and stakeholders to achieve a common and societal understanding of environmental change as a complex phenomenon from the individual to the global level, and has participated in multi-national and multi-institutional collaborations across the world.

ABSTRACT:

What are some of the most important issues dealing with human dimensions in participatory research related to natural resource management and policy? This talk will look at some new research directions and methodological frameworks that shift the science and research agenda towards more cross-disciplinary settings. The presentation will emphasize the role of participatory modelling (e.g., visioning, role-playing games, scenarios, agent-based modelling) in working with communities and stakeholders. It will also explore a suite of network-based science approaches (social networks, Bayesian belief networks, semantic network and integrative social-ecological networks) allowing the study of complexity in coupled natural and human systems. Some key inferences and heuristics will be drawn upon existing examples and case studies, using graphical, interactive and mathematical simulation software. Finally, the talk aims to demonstrate how principles of sustainability, adaptability, emergence and resilience can be addressed at multiple scales of interaction.