EMK COMPLEXITY - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Senior Research Associate
• Head of Research and Development at the Active Learning Network for Accountability

Ben Ramalingam is the Head of Research and Development at the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance (ALNAP), a unique sector-wide network which works to improve international humanitarian performance through learning and accountability. Ben has worked at the leading UK think-tank, the Overseas Development Institute, where he led research and advisory work on organisational learning, strategic thinking, and knowledge management in the aid sector. Prior to working for ODI, Ben worked in the private sector, focusing on strategy consulting, investment banking and IT. Highlights from his previous work includes a review of organisational change in the humanitarian sector, work on the global food price crisis, on urban crises and complex emergencies. Ongoing work includes leading an initiative on humanitarian innovations and a cross-Atlantic research programme on leadership in aid organisations. Ben has also published on complexity and aid issues.

Job Titles:

• Senior Research Associate

Christopher Day works in the field of international development for the German Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the German Federal Foreign Office/NATO ISAF and the German Center for International Migration and Development (CIM). His most recent assignments were in Afghanistan where he conducted advisory work for the Afghan High Peace Council, international partners and Afghan civil society organisations in the areas of strategy development, multi-stakeholder collaboration, strategic communication and donor coordination. Further international work experience in India, Israel/Palestine China and the US. He also worked in the private sector, among others, as a managing editor, strategic communications expert and consultant. Christopher Day studied International Business Administration and holds a Master's degree in Consulting and Coaching for Change - a programme jointly run by HEC Paris and Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. His research areas are Social Innovation, Complexity Theory and Leadership.

Job Titles:

• Research Scientist
• Senior Research Associate

Paul Stevens started working life as a research scientist gaining a PhD from Brunel University, an MSc in Biochemistry from London University and a BSc in Pharmacology from Bradford University. He spent nearly fifteen years unsuccessfully searching for new medicines. He next spent about twenty years leading various aspects of IT for a major pharmaceutical company eventually reaching the dizzying heights of Vice-president of IT for the UK subsidiary. In 2008, Paul retired from gainful employment and is now a fulltime, unpaid numismatist researching the coins and coinage of India with particular focus on the British East India Company. His interest in complexity science began in the 1990s during a series of seminars run at the London School of Economics. Since then he has been interested in the application of these ideas to various aspects of his work, initially in managing people, but most recently to numismatics.

Job Titles:

• Agent
• Senior Research Associate

Ugur Bilge is an Agent Based Simulations (ABS) expert, who develops tools for understanding, communicating and applying the Complex Systems approach to real world problems. In 1993, Ugur received his PhD in Computer Science from University College London, where he worked as a research assistant in European funded research projects on Neural Nets and Genetic Algorithms. Later he worked as a consultant at the Logistics Innovation Centre, J. Sainsbury plc where he designed and developed state-of-the-art software tools for Forecasting, Optimisation, Planning and Scheduling applications for Finance, Retail and Logistics, applying techniques such as Neural Nets, Genetic Algorithms, Fuzzy Logic, and the Complex Adaptive Systems approach. In 1998 Ugur co-founded SimWorld Ltd in the UK, a consultancy and innovative solutions company, and developed SimStore, a realistic simulation of a supermarket layout with moving customers. Since then he has been developing ABS for a number of clients, including a geographic model of Container Transport in the UK, and a coarse grain simulation of Oil World. Ugur was the modelling expert for the ICoSS Project at London School of Economics (LSE). He developed the Organisational Forms Simulator, an agent based network simulation and visualisation tool for exploring informal social networks, and investigating patterns of connectivity within business organisations. Since 2003, Ugur has held the position of Assistant Professor at the Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics at Akdeniz University, in Antalya, Turkey. He taught Agent Based Simulations and Complex Systems, Artificial Intelligence and Data Mining, and applied complexity thinking to medical and healthcare problems, such as the development of a simulator for management of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). In 2006 and 2007 he was a tutor for the LSE Taught Course for Researchers on Complexity Science and Complex Social Systems.

Job Titles:

• Director

Professor Eve Mitleton-Kelly is Director of the EMK Complexity Group; ​Member of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on Complex Systems Eve Mitleton-Kelly has had two careers. One in the British Civil Service, Department of Trade & Industry (1967-1983) where she was involved in the formulation of UK and international policy; including the first report on Computers and Privacy in the 1970s; in the negotiation of EU Directives, advising Ministers; and another as an academic at the London School of Economics (since 1988).

Job Titles:

• Senior Research Associate
• Is Director of Inner Skills

Kate Hopkinson is Director of Inner Skills, a consultancy she set up in 1995. She uses an innovative methodology she has developed, called Landscape of the Mind. As well as 30 years experience in management and organisation development, Kate has been CEO of a not-for-profit organisation, and served for 6 years on the board of Saferworld, an NGO concerned with international security issues. She is a designated expert in cognitive sciences for the European Commission, and has been a formal reviewer for EU projects. As well as writing articles and papers, she contributed to the best selling "The Personal Management Handbook". She has been attached to the Complexity research group at LSE since 2000, and worked on the ICoSS project, with Rolls-Royce Marine, Norwich Union, Shell, BT and The Modernisation Agency of the NHS.

Job Titles:

• Senior Research Fellow

Job Titles:

• Senior Research Associate
• Planner

Noah Raford is an urban planner and a PhD candidate in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is the former North American Director for Space Syntax Limited, a Fellow at the LSE Complexity Programme, a fellow at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, and a research associate at the Oxford University Institute for Science, Innovation and Society. Noah's research at the LSE focuses on the theoretical foundations of systemic change, with a particular emphasis on the impact of climate change on critical infrastructure systems. He uses scenario planning, systems mapping and web participation tools to help managers better understand the risks they face in a changing world, as well as what web-enabled complexity approaches can offer for new forms of management and strategy in turbulent times.