Dana Meadows

[John Sterman]

To the system dynamics community:

Dana Meadows passed away yesterday after complications from meningitis.

I append here an obituary written by Alan AtKisson, a long-time
member of the Balaton Group.

As of this morning (Wednesday 21 Feb) plans for a memorial service
have not yet been announced.

I know the prayers of the entire system dynamics community are with
Dana and her family.

John Sterman

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Donella H. Meadows, 59, a pioneering environmental scientist and writer,
died Tuesday in New Hampshire after a brief illness. She was best known to
the world as the lead author of the international bestselling book The
Limits to Growth, published in 1972. The book, which reported on a study of
long-term global trends in population, economics, and the environment, sold
millions of copies and was translated into 28 languages. She was also the
lead author of the twenty-year follow-up study, Beyond the Limits (1992),
with original co-authors Dennis Meadows and Jxrgen Randers.

Professor Meadows, known as "Dana" to friends and colleagues, was a leading
voice in what has become known as the "sustainability movement," an
international effort to reverse damaging trends in the environment, economy,
and social systems. Her work is widely recognized as a formative influence
on hundreds of other academic studies, government policy initiatives, and
international agreements.

Dana Meadows was also a devoted teacher of environmental systems, ethics,
and journalism to her students at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New
Hampshire, where she taught for 29 years. In addition to her many original
contributions to systems theory and global trend analysis, she managed a
small farm and was a vibrant member of her local community. Genuinely
unconcerned with her international fame, she often referred to herself
simply as "a farmer and a writer."

Donella Meadows was born March 13, 1941 in Elgin, Illinois, and educated in
science, earning a B.A. in chemistry from Carleton College in 1963 and a
Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard University in 1968. As a research fellow
at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, she was a protege of Jay
Forrester, the inventor of system dynamics as well as the principle of
magnetic data storage for computers.

In 1972 she was on the MIT team that produced the global computer model
"World3" for the Club of Rome and provided the basis for The Limits to
Growth. The book made headlines around the world, and began a debate about
the limits of the Earths capacity to support human economic expansion, a
debate that continues to this day. Her writing - appearing most often in
the form of a weekly column called "The Global Citizen," nominated for the
Pulitzer Prize in 1991 -- has been published regularly in the international
press since that time.

In 1981, together with her former husband Dennis Meadows, Donella Meadows
founded the International Network of Resource Information Centers (INRIC),
also called the Balaton Group (after the lake in Hungary where the group
meets annually). The group built early and critical avenues of exchange
between scientists on both sides of the Iron Curtain at the height of the
Cold War.

As the Balaton Groups coordinator for eighteen years, she facilitated what
grew to become an unusually effective global process of information sharing
and collaboration among hundreds of leading academics, researchers, and
activists in the broader sustainability movement. Professor Meadows also
served on many national and international boards and scientific committees,
and taught and lectured all over the world. She was recognized as a 1991
Pew Scholar and as a 1994 MacArthur Fellow for her work. In 1992 the Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) presented her with an honorary
doctorate.

In 1997, Professor Meadows founded the Sustainability Institute, which she
described as a "think-do-tank." The Institute combines cutting edge research
in global systems with practical demonstrations of sustainable living,
including the development of an ecological village and organic farm in
Hartland Four Corners, Vermont.

Donella Meadows is survived by her mother, Phoebe Quist of Tahlequah
Oklahoma; her father, Don Hager of the Chicago area; a brother, Jason Hager,
of Wisconsin; cousins and nephews; and a large community of colleagues and
friends, both international and local, in the organizations that she founded
and assisted.

____________________
Obituary prepared by members of the Balaton Group (INRIC)

For further information contact:
In USA: alan@atkisson.com
(In New England: bmiller@vermontel.net)
In Europe: davis@eawag.ch
In Asia:arevi@taru.org

["William Steinhurst"]

Danas "Global Citizen" columns were carried by several Vermont
newspapers and widely cited in policy discussions here. The an
editorial about her can be seen at

www.burlingtonfreepress.com/editorial/t ... /1000h.htm

It appeared Thursday, along with a cheery photo of her that doesnt
appear on the web site, and conveys some sense of the respect and
affection many Vermonters had for her.

Note: The editorial mentions in passing that her opposition to certain
Vermont growth control laws had been misconstrued by "foes of
regulation." Her criticism of environmental regulation flowed from her
practical experiences with developing an ecologically sound co-
housing community in Vermont and, as I understood it, centered on
how tradtional regulation is structured to prevent the occurrence of
bad things, not to reward and facilitate the achievement of good
things, a structure-savvy position in the best traditions of our
discipline.


William Steinhurst, Dir. for Regulated Utility Planning
Department of Public Service
112 State St, Drawer 20, Montpelier VT 05620
802 828 4006 Fax 802 828 2342 tty/ttd 1 800 734 8390
wsteinhu@psd.state.vt.us http://www.state.vt.us/psd