Jennifer Wilby (photo: Jennifer Wilby)
Jennifer Wilby is the first female member of our Scientific Council (see here). She is a senior lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Programmes in the Business School at the University of Hull. Jennifer is a Fellow of the International Academy of Systems and Cybernetic Systems (IASCYS), President of the United Kingdom Systems Society (UKSS) 2013-15, and President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) in 2010/11. Jennifer has been working in the role of Vice President of Administration for ISSS since the end of the 1990s, and has been an editor and member of editorial boards for several ISSS and systems publications in that same time. In 1995, a paper on working within a framework for using multiple methodologies won the Vickers Award for Best student paper.
Her work over the past 20 years has been driven by the need to provide space on a regular basis for the people who work with General System Theory and to preserve both the legacy of the original Society for General Systems Research and its current investigations and contributions and future promise for our complex world.
“As President of ISSS,” she says, “I was heavility influenced in the design of that conference by my past experiences in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary modes of research and practice. This research is centred on the body of knowledge core to the Bertalanffy Centre and General Systems Theory.” In the 2011 conference, the theme “All Together Now – Working Across Disciplines: People, Principles and Practice” was chosen to focus a collective exploration of these core principles of GST and transdisciplinary working.
The following words describe the mission of her engagement: “The continued quest for successful holistic applications highlights the necessity to work across disciplines and to unite the different systemic schools and disciplines and to develop the people skills and capabilities for doing so.”