Abstract

In this seminar, I will explain about innovative, adaptive frameworks based on complexity science, for generating non-linear positive impact on complex, interconnected social and environmental issues, and on foundational research. These frameworks are built on fostering and weaving together evidence-based, nuanced communication and interdisciplinary and intercultural collaboration.

To illustrate, I will speak to my personal experience as a “Western” researcher with a background in physics, working alongside Indigenous Peoples and researchers from various disciplines, principally in South America over the past decade. I will explain how I refined an evidence-based, interdisciplinary and intercultural approach to this work, and how it formed the basis for crafting projects, and writing about the complex, interrelated, social and environmental issues encountered for a wider audience.

I will further explain how these experiences helped to inspire our innovative approach to communication and collaboration at The InterPlex, a nonprofit, evidence-based, open-source publication and collaborative community. By fostering interdisciplinary and intercultural collaboration and dialogue, and engaging the public and policy makers through compelling and understandable evidence-based, nuanced and actionable content that resides at the intersection of science, society, technology, health, culture, policy and the living planet, we envision an interconnected global community of critical thinkers who combat misinformation, support the dynamic scientific process, and dissolve divisions. Researchers and students will be encouraged to join and participate in this recently launched collaborative initiative. 

About the Speaker

My name is Daniel Henryk Rasolt and I am an interdisciplinary and intercultural researcher, writer, and project developer. I hold a degree in astrophysics from Cornell University and have spent the last 12 years working and researching in diverse disciplines, with a geographical focus principally in South America. The areas of research extend from gravitation and multi-messenger astronomy to land use and landscape ecology to hydrological dynamics, soil microbiology, alternative energy sources, and nutrition transitions, as well as socioeconomic and Indigenous-related anthropological topics. I weave together and build bridges between these diverse themes through evidence and dialogue. This interdisciplinary approach has a basis in the ordering of complex systems, a broad field in which I have collaborated extensively over the past several years.

My articles and recordings come from first-hand research and collaboration with experts, Indigenous leaders, organizations, and policy makers, and my work has been published in New Scientist, Nautilus, Undark, The Revelator, and Resilience, amongst others. I am a fluent Spanish and proficient Portuguese speaker, and am the founder and chief editor of The InterPlex, a recently launched evidence-based nonprofit publication and collaborative community that focuses on the interdisciplinary, intercultural, and interconnected.