This year the Brown School at WashU proudly hosted the fifth annual SSSI from August 12-16, 2024. A group of 34 doctoral students, fellows, researchers, and community partners from across the U.S. and the world joined together for training in systems science and its applications for social impact.
The Institute was a 5-day program that offered in-depth systems science methods training for health and social science scholars. Participants received training in either an introduction to systems, agent-based modeling, group model building, system dynamics, or social network analysis.
Participants learned about major systems science concepts and analytic best practices, and applied the methods to their own real-world data.
The expertise of the track leaders was exceptional! The colleagues attending were also very helpful as we acquired concepts together.
SD Participant
SSSI 2024 Group photo at the Missouri Botanical Garden
Systems Science panelists
Plenary presentation
Panelists Nasim Sabounchi and Doug Luke
Connecting
Hard at work
SSSI 2024 Plenary speaker Kamal Henderson
Listening intently
Caleras Terrace at the Brown School
Kelsey Werner, GMB instructor
Networking
Nasim Sabounchi, SD instructor
Rachel Matsumoto, GMB instructor
Ross Hammond, ABM instructor
Writing on the wall
Alex Morshed and Ginger McKay, Intro to Systems co-instructors
Doug Luke, SNA instructor
Panelists Alex Morshed and Matt Kasman
Funding workshop discussion
Sara Malone, SNA instructor
Group model building demonstration
Matt Kasman, ABM instructor
ABM instruction
An evening at the Missouri Botanical Garden
An evening at the Missouri Botanical Garden
An evening at the Missouri Botanical Garden
An evening at the Missouri Botanical Garden
An evening at the Missouri Botanical Garden
It is hard to distill all the helpful insights…into one thing that I liked best, but I truly enjoyed learning from experts in the field who were so approachable and passionate about the topic. Since coming into this track with not much knowledge of SNA, I really appreciated all the tools and resources that were provided to us, and the opportunity to reach out in the future.
SNA participant
2023
In 2023, SSSI welcomed 29 doctoral students, fellows, researchers, and community partners from across the U.S. and the world coming from as far as Australia, Chile, and Luxembourg.
Having the workshops and panels that grounded the different approaches in real-world application was really great and I appreciated this “brain space” to step out of the theory and skills mode, to think about what this looks like in various sectors/contexts.
This has been an excellent opportunity. It felt welcoming, like it had multiple ‘points of entry’ in terms of background knowledge, and has so much potential to be useful for my work.
2022
In 2022, we were thrilled to return to an in-person Institute for the third annual SSSI from July 24-29, 2022. A group of 40 researchers, evaluators, post doctoral scholars, and graduate students from across the U.S. and the world joined together for training in systems science and its applications for social impact.
This was the most positive professional meeting experience I have had as a graduate student. I thoroughly enjoyed my time learning and networking with others.
ABM Participant
It was a phenomenal week that flew by! Many great connections and extremely useful content, as well as a lot of cultivation of thinking re: the importance of systems work.
GMB Participant
2021
At the second annual SSSI, 65 researchers, evaluators, clinicians, students joined together virtually from August 2-6, 2021. This Institute saw a record-breaking number of participants joining from 7 countries on four continents and representing 25 U.S. states. As a virtual convening, this Institute was very different from the others.
I just loved learning about it. I want to use it now so very badly as I can see so many places it would add value. I am grateful that I had this chance… now where to get more???
2019
In the inaugural year of SSSI, 33 researchers, evaluators, and governmental administrators from around the U.S. and the world came to the Brown School from July 29 to August 2, 2019 for training in systems science and how it can be applied to enhance social impact.
The structure of learning the theory then applying it in R was really beneficial and I felt I could really understand the concepts better that way.
