Worcester is the second largest city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the 114th most-populous city in the United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 census, also making it the second-most populous city in New England after Boston. Worcester is approximately 40 miles (64 km) west of Boston, 50 miles (80 km) east of Springfield and 40 miles (64 km) north-northwest of Providence. Due to its location near the geographic center of Massachusetts, Worcester is known as the "Heart of the Commonwealth"; a heart is the official symbol of the city. Worcester is the historical seat of Worcester County in central Massachusetts.
System dynamics (SD) is an approach to understanding the nonlinear behaviour of complex systems over time using stocks, flows, internal feedback loops, table functions and time delays.
Donella Hager "Dana" Meadows was an American environmental scientist, educator, and writer. She is best known as lead author of the books The Limits to Growth and Thinking In Systems: A Primer.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is a private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1865, WPI was one of the United States' first engineering and technology universities and now has 14 academic departments with over 50 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science, engineering, technology, management, the social sciences, and the humanities and arts. WPI awards bachelor's, master's and Ph.D. degrees for the completion of these programs. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity".
Jay Wright Forrester was a pioneering American computer engineer, management theorist and systems scientist. He spent his entire career at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, entering as a graduate student in 1939, and eventually retiring in 1989.
John David Sterman is the Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management, and the current director of the MIT System Dynamics Group at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is also co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute. He is mostly considered as the current leader of the System Dynamics school of thought. He is the author of Business Dynamics: Systems Thinking and Modeling for a Complex World.
Jacob Aall Bonnevie Bjerknes was a meteorologist. He is known for his key paper in which he pointed the dynamics of the polar front, mechanism for north-south heat transport and for which he was also awarded a doctorate from the University of Oslo.
Fire protection engineering is the application of science and engineering principles to protect people, property, and their environments from the harmful and destructive effects of fire and smoke. It encompasses engineering which focuses on fire detection, suppression and mitigation and fire safety engineering which focuses on human behavior and maintaining a tenable environment for evacuation from a fire. In the United States 'fire protection engineering' is often used to include 'fire safety engineering'.
Sigma Gamma Tau (ΣΓΤ) is the American honor society in Aerospace Engineering. It seeks to identify and recognize achievement and excellence in the Aerospace field within the United States. Sigma Gamma Tau's collegiate chapters elect annually to membership those students, alumni, and professionals who, by conscientious attention to their studies or professional duties, uphold this high standard for the betterment of their profession.
Ralph Earle served the United States Navy during the Spanish–American War and World War I. He was the Chief, Bureau of Ordnance (BUORD) and retired as a rear admiral in 1927.
Chi Epsilon (ΧΕ) is an American civil engineering honor society. It honors engineering students in the United States who have exemplified the "principles of scholarship, character, practicality, and sociability...in the civil engineering profession." There are currently 141 chapters, of which 137 are active, where over 125,000 members have been inducted. Chi Epsilon is a 501c(3) non-profit organization, with Platinum Certification by www.guidestar.org. As of Feb 2022, Chi Epsilon does not have an active President, Executive Director, or Board of Directors, and its website is unavailable pending restructuring by the remaining members of Chi Epsilon's National Council.
Architectural Engineer (PE) is a professional engineering designation in the United States. The architectural engineer applies the knowledge and skills of broader engineering disciplines to the design, construction, operation, maintenance, and renovation of buildings and their component systems while paying careful attention to their effects on the surrounding environment.
Jørgen Randers is a Norwegian academic, professor emeritus of climate strategy at the BI Norwegian Business School, and practitioner in the field of future studies. His professional field encompasses model-based futures studies, scenario analysis, system dynamics, sustainability, climate, energy and ecological economics. He is also a full member of the Club of Rome, a company director, member of various not-for-profit boards, business consultant on global sustainability matters and author. His publications include the seminal work The Limits to Growth (co-author), and Reinventing Prosperity.
Jiangsu University is a highly ranked and prestigious doctoral research university located in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province, People's Republic of China (PRC). It is a National Key University jointly developed by the Jiangsu Provincial Government, Chinese Ministry of Education, and The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of the People's Republic of China.
Barry Marshall Richmond was an American systems scientist, and former managing director of High Performance Systems, Inc (HPS), an organization providing software and consulting services to build the capacity of people to understand and improve the workings of dynamic systems. He is known as a leader in the field of systems thinking and system dynamics and for the development of the STELLA/iThink modelling environment for simulation.
DYNAMO is a simulation language and accompanying graphical notation developed within the system dynamics analytical framework. It was originally for industrial dynamics but was soon extended to other applications, including population and resource studies and urban planning.
Phyllis Ann Fox was an American mathematician and computer scientist.
David Allen Lucht is an American engineer and fire safety expert. His career was devoted to public service in government, academia and the nonprofit sector. He served as the Ohio State Fire Marshal; the first presidential appointee to serve in the United States Fire Administration and the inaugural head of the graduate degree fire protection engineering program at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he served for 25 years
