Alexander Christakis

Alexander (Aleco) Christakis (1937 Athens, Greece) is a Greek American social scientist, systems scientist, and served at the Yale University, the Georgetown University, the University of Athens, the University of Virginia, and at George Mason University

Biography

Christakis was born 1937 in Athens, Greece. He came to the United States in 1956, and attended Princeton University with the vision of becoming a theoretical physicist. After completing his Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics at Yale, he returned to Greece and joined the world-class architectural firm of Doxiadis Associates. [http://www.cwaltd.com/index1.htm?main.htm&2 Biography] Alexander N. Christakis, January, 17, 2003.]

Christakis has served on the faculties of Yale University, Georgetown University, University of Athens, and the University of Virginia. He also spent five years at George Mason University as the Director of the Center for Interactive Management.

He is co-founder of the Club of Rome, where he was a collaborator of Aurelio Peccei, Erich Jantsch and Hasan Özbekhan, after working for Konstantinos Apostolos Doxiadis. In 2002, Dr. Christakis served as President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences. He also serves as President of the Institute for 21st Century Agoras [ [http://www.globalagoras.org Global Agoras ] ] , a Think Tank dedicated to the practice of Co-Laboratories of Democracy around the world. More recently he served as co-founders of the "Lovers of Democracy" [ http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/loversofdemocracy/InquiryDesignTeam.htm ] and the Blogora [ [http://blogora.net/ The Blogora - Blogora, Working in Dialogue ] ]

In 2007 he is serving on the Board of Directors of the Americans for Indian Opportunity (AIO), and also as an Advisor to the Ambassadors Program of AIO, which serves indigenous people around the world [ [http://www.AIO.org. Americans for Indian Opportunity ] ] , and as a Managing Partner of Leading Design International [ [http://www.Leadingdesign.org. LDi ] ] , a consulting firm dedicated to building design cultures in organizations.

He serves on the Editorial Boards of "Systems Research and Behavioral Sciences", "Systems: Journal of Transdiscplinary Systems Science", and the "Journal of Applied Systems Studies".

He has received numerous awards and distinctions including the "DEMOSOPHIA Award," the "Creative Programming Award" from the National University Continuing Education Association, to name a few.

Work

In his work Christakis applies rigorous scientific principles to the study of human organizations and societal systems. [ [http://www.authenticitydialogue.com/who_we_are.htm Who We Are ] ]

Science of human settlements

After his studies Christakis returned to Greece and joined the world-class architectural firm of [Konstantinos Apostolos Doxiadis|Doxiadis Associates. His responsibility there was to apply rigorous scientific principles borrowed from the physical sciences to developing the science of "human settlements."

It is in this setting, in the late 1960s when the American cities were "burning," that Aleco realized the major distinction between the "hard" and "soft" sciences. Most people believe that the physical sciences are "hard," meaning difficult, and the social sciences are "soft," meaning easy. He discovered that "soft is hard," and dedicated the rest of his career to the study and design of social systems.

CWA ltd

In 1989 Christakis founded and became the CEO of CWA Ltd. [ [http://www.CWALtd.com CWA Ltd. Interactive Management Consultants ] ] , a consulting firm dedicated to the application of the Interactive Management discipline with governments, businesses and non-profit organizations. The reusability and robustness of this structured dialogue paradigm to interdisciplinary dialogue have been verified in the domains of Environmental and Natural Resource Stewardship; Social, Economic, Educational, Professional, and Cultural Development; Healthcare Systems, Biomedical Research, Development and Regulation; and Technology, Capital, and Knowledge Management.

Publications

Christakis has published over 100 papers on the management of complexity in refereed journals. He is also the co-author of two books on "Technology Assessment,". Books:
* 2006, "Co-laboratories of democracy: how people harness their collective wisdom to create the future", with Kenneth C. Bausch, Boston, MA: Information Age Publishing. [http://www.harnessingcollectivewisdom.com/]
* 2005, "Pragmatic Design Dialogue".

Articles and papers, a selection:
* THE PREDICAMENT OF MANKIND - Quest for ... Original Prospectus of the Club of Rome, with co-authors like Hasan Ozbekhan, Erich Jantch, Peccei, ...and others (PDF) [http://quergeist.net/Christakis/predicament.pdf] see also [http://quergeist.net/Christakis]

References

External links

* [http://www.cwaltd.com/index1.htm?main.htm&2 Biography] Alexander N. Christakis, 2003.
* [http://www.cwaltd.com/q76.html Review] Dialogue for the Information Age Democracy, by Alexander N. Christakis, 2005.