Pille Bunnell
Vancouver, B.C.

Most of my professional career I have worked as a systems ecologist who specialized in the explanation of various disciplines from a systems perspective for specialists in other domains, for policy makers, and the public. I acted as the Director of Environmental Literacy with an international consulting firm (ESSA Technologies Ltd.) where I also conducted integrative projects using a set of methods known as Adaptive Environmental Management applied to concerns including fisheries and forestry, land use management, and climate change. I designed and co-authored the first State of Environment report for BC, developed public school curricula on ecology, and designed a line of multimedia educational games collectively known as FutureQuest.

Over the past several years I have shifted my focus to cybernetics, and I've been writing papers and both fiction and non-fiction books (the books not yet published) that deal with the nature of complex systems and human cognition, and the practical applications of this to the multifaceted relations between humans and the biosphere. I have just completed a three year term as the President of the American Society of Cybernetics (ASC), and will now stay in office as Past President for another three years. In 2001 the ASC conducted its annual conference at UBC, and as part of that CSCI co-sponsored the Remaining Human Forum. This led to the opportunity for me to teach a couple of courses and a seminar at CSCI - and although they had different titles and dealt with different concerns they were all grounded in the biology of cognition. During the year 2002 I am travelling in New Zealand, Australia, and Northern Europe and will be presenting seminars and workshops on various aspects of this topic.