Contributors

The contributors to the Designing Inspiring Workshops and Courses in Transdisciplinarity: A Guide who are part of the Transdisciplinary Training Collaboratory: Building Common Ground grant are listed in alphabetical order below.

This project brought together key transdisciplinary thought leaders and trainers from regional centers and programs around the world. In the bios below, you can read more about their experience and how they contributed to the project. You can read more about how we worked together in the guide.

View guide. Download PDF.

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Patricia Balvanara

Professor Institute for Ecosystems and Sustainability Research (IIES) National Autonomous University of Mexico (Web Profile)

Short Biography

I was trained as an ecologist and have been acting as a knowledge broker among disciplines and more recently among knowledge types for several decades. I have co-lead collaborative initiatives at local to global scales to support transformative changes towards more just and sustainable futures. I teach sustainability to graduate students and I am a co-Editor in Chief of Ecology and Society.

I participated in the different phases of the guide, since its design, the conceptual groundings, and the different iterations.

Gabriele Bammer

Professor of Integration and Implementation Sciences, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, The Australian National University (Web Profile)

Short Biography

My work focuses on providing tools (theories, concepts, methods, processes and more) for tackling complex societal and environmental problems and building a community – ideally a discipline – that connects inter- and transdisciplinarity, systems thinking, action research, implementation science, post-normal science, complexity science and other initiatives that deal with complex problems.

I participated in all online team meetings and responded to requests for written input in the earlier stages of the project.

Tobias Buser

Independent Consultant (Web Profile)

Short Biography

I am passionate about enabling co-creation of knowledge and working together on pathways to a more sustainable future.  Capacity strengthening for engaged research and other participatory endeavors in diverse settings are key elements of my work. 

For this project, I actively participated in all team meetings, drafted, edited, and reviewed parts of the guide, and tested it in three trainer workshops.

Margaret Krebs

Program Designer, Stanford University (Web Profile)

Short Biography

During my college years I appreciated the classes where a “learning by doing” approach was part of the curriculum. Throughout my career as a teacher, boundary practitioner, and program designer, I’ve had the opportunity to apply that approach and other interactive methods.  

This project has given me the opportunity to realize a dream: to train others to use interactive tools through the design and facilitation of our training workshops in  Panama City, Panama, Canberra, Australia, Helsinki, Finland, and Kyoto, Japan.  As the Project Director, I aimed to honor the principles of co-design, co-production, and co-implementation.

Hein Mallee

Kyoto Prefectural University (Web Profile)

Short Biography

My work as a social scientist seeks to create actionable insights for rural communities. My experience tells me research is a tool for positive change. I have worked as a researcher and practitioner in China, Southeast Asia and Japan for the past 30 years. My work usually  involves people with different disciplinary and sectoral backgrounds. It evolves around themes such as poverty alleviation, rural development, natural resource management, emerging infectious diseases and food systems. 

I was part of the project from the beginning, participating face-to-face and online in several of the workshops, drafting and reviewing materials, and engaging discussions on the direction of the work.

Pamela Matson

Stanford University Doerr School of Sustainability (Web Profile)

Short Biography

I am passionate about helping the world move toward sustainability, which I define as inclusive intergenerational well-being of humans and our planetary life support systems.  I’ve spent the 40+ years of my career in research and teaching, focused on environment, human-nature interactions and sustainability.   As a sustainability scientist and systems analyst, I know there is no way to make good progress toward sustainability without interactions and partnerships across multiple disciplines and among researchers and decision makers of all kinds.  As I’ve engaged in such research partnerships, I’ve often had to learn by doing, making mistakes along the way.  I wish I’d had the benefit of training in transdisciplinary research, learning from those who have more experience than I! 

I’ve been excited to participate in this project, serving as the Stanford University PI for the project, drafting the first synthesis of what TDR is and what’s important in doing it, participating in planning efforts and workshops, and partnering with Margaret Krebs, our project director. My hope is that this TDR training effort will help many others engage more fully and help the world make more progress toward sustainability.

Susi Moser

Susanne Moser Research & Consulting and Antioch University New England (Web Profile)

Short Biography

All my work is about change: climate change and societal change. As a researcher, writer, speaker, trainer and facilitator, I work with others to find the motivations and remove the barriers and enact the change we wish to see in the world.

In this project, I contributed to proposal writing and fundraising, designing and facilitating the in-person team meetings, writing numerous sections of the design guide, designing and delivering trainings to pilot test our design guide, making necessary adjustments, and evaluating the project’s conduct and impact as far as we can know it to date. I also served as an advisor to the project director, Margaret Krebs.

Connie Nshemereirwe

Independent Science and Policy Facilitator (Web Profile)

Short Biography

I support researchers across Africa to bridge the gap between their science and policy by running workshops in science communication, policy-engaged research, and science leadership. I have also been the Director of the Africa Science Leadership Programme (ASLP), and before that had a 15-year career as an academic at the Uganda Martyrs University.

I participated in, and helped facilitate the virtual and in-person team meetings as we shaped the design guide.  I helped design and run the two training workshops for University of Pretoria, held at Future Africa in June 2024.

Marcella Ohira

Deputy Executive Director and Director of the Science Diplomacy Center at the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) (Web Profile)

Short Biography

I am a specialist in designing and implementing programs that connect science, policy, and diplomacy to address global environmental challenges. My work focuses on strengthening capacities in science diplomacy, scientific advisement, and transdisciplinary research approaches. I have led initiatives such as the Science Diplomacy Center (SDC), the Science, Technology, and Policy (STeP) Fellowship Program, and the IAI Transdisciplinary (TD) Academy, which build networks among researchers, decision-makers, and stakeholders to co-design solutions for policy-relevant issues in the Americas.

In this project, I contributed by bringing this science-policy-diplomacy perspective to the discussions as an integral part of the transdisciplinary research framework. These contributions are based on the work I’ve been developing with the IAI Transdisciplinary (TD) Academy, where I have designed and implemented a transdisciplinary research training program that fosters the creation of communities of practice, engaging scientists from various disciplines, decision-makers, and stakeholders in the co-design of impactful research projects. It also serves as a platform for sharing information, best practices, and facilitating regional dialogue to support informed decision-making for the benefit of society. I also worked to link these TD communities of practice to funding opportunities to support researchers and policy makers to engage in TD research.

Tolullah Oni

Clinical Professor of Global Public Health and Sustainable Urban Development at the University of Cambridge, and the Founder of UrbanBetter (Web Profile, UrbanBetter)

Short Biography

My interwoven experiences as a physician, a researcher and a runner have shaped my professional roles as an urban epidemiology academic, an urban health practitioner and a planetary health advocate. My work is focused on generating the evidence and participatory infrastructure/mechanisms needed to support diverse actors and sectors to increase the supply of health from place and the demand for healthy climate resilient places.  

I participated in several project meetings and co-facilitated the training workshops at University of Pretoria, held at Future Africa in June 2024.

D Parthasarathy

Professor and Dean, Nayanta Education Foundation (Web Profile)

Short Biography

Almost of the research that I carried out after my Ph.D in 1995, has been inter- or trans-disciplinary. I have loved working on real life problems with academics and non-academics, as well as knowledgeable community members. Most of all, what I have gained most has been the learning from integrating approaches and methods across different disciplines and fields, designing innovative research methods, transcending traditional boundaries, and structuring / framing problems in new ways.

In the TD Training Collab project, I have been involved in review and contributions to Research Briefs, and contributed to discussions and deliberations by attending meetings in person and online. I have also contributed to the review of the design guide, and writing topic summaries.

Christian Pohl

Head of TdLab, ETH Zürich, Switzerland (Web Profile)

Short Biography

My work in the field of research for sustainable development seeks to connect researchers at our university with social actors from Switzerland by finding things both groups are interested in and concerned about. 

My main contribution to the project was to participate in the final meeting in Delft.

Sarah Schweizer

START International, USA (Web Profile)

Short Biography

I am the Director of Programs at START International. I am passionate about bringing people together for connection, professional development, and wellbeing to discover and cultivate the best in themselves to advance global change science.

I contributed to proposal strategy, team meetings, writing of the design guide, and delivery of pilot testing and evaluation. 

Lorrae Van Kerkhoff

Director, Australia National University Institute for Water Futures (Web Profile)

Short Biography

I specialize in working with students, researchers and practitioners to explore how science and research-based knowledge can support better decision-making on complex socio-environmental issues. I strongly believe emerging scholars and practitioners need to be equipped with the collaborative and critical thinking skills that are the bedrock of transdisciplinary approaches and have been training undergraduate and graduate students in these skills for more than 15 years.

In this project my highlights of engaging with and learning from this team included participating in 4 intensive team workshops in person, joining several others online, writing draft sections of the guide and reviewing others, piloting its use in training at my home institution, and helping to finalize the text. The outcome of that is in your hands, I wish you well on your transdisciplinary training journey!

Coleen Vogel

Distinguished Professor, Global Change Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa (Web Profile)

Short Biography

The world is confronted with many complex wicked challenges that will require activating agency of a range of actors. As an African I have a passion to work with and not only for society, particularly inspiring the next generation of change agents to make a sustainable difference. In this regard I work in the climate change field using an engaged approach that includes a transdisciplinary focus and one that includes a strong youth led dimension.

In the development of the guide I was part of the advisory team helping to co-create ideas and content matter where relevant. My hope is that the guide will continue to be a living document that can enable change in a ‘messy world’.

Gabriela Wuelser

Head of Sustainability Research & Deputy Head of Science and Policy Division, Swiss Academy of Sciences (SCNAT) (Web Profile)

Short Biography

Driven by the idea that we can only master the challenges of our time if we join forces, I specialize both in understanding the complexities of sustainability questions and in identifying ways in which science can support societal change processes without being policy prescriptive.

It’s in this spirit that I, as an expert in sustainability science and transdisciplinary research, participated in the project meetings, worked on the text for both the research brief and the design guide and co-facilitated a test training.

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