Shibari is a form of interaction between people and besides an exotic spectacle, it is a series of strange but pleasant kinesthetic sensations. Intimate is not equally depraved, but means that during the shibari ropes process, the participants in the session show emotions that are not customary to experience in public: tears, laughter and groans of pleasure.

Scott Heckbert (PhD 2010) is the Principal Environmental Scientist at the Alberta Energy Regulator, and an Adjunct Professor at University of Alberta and University of Lethbridge, Canada. Scott’s area of specialization is combining agent-based models, GIS, and 3D visualization. These technologies are used as digital laboratories where scientists, decision makers, and stakeholders can interact for improved understanding of complex social-environmental systems.

Dr. Cheick Amed Diloma Gabriel Traore is a researcher specializing in modeling multi-agent systems. He earned his PhD from Cheikh Anta Diop University (UCAD) in Senegal. His doctoral research focused on the formalization and simulation of Sahelian transhumance as a complex adaptive system. Utilizing mathematical and computational techniques, he developed agent-based models to analyze the spatiotemporal dynamics of transhumant herds, taking into account factors such as herd behavior, environmental conditions, and socio-economic pressures.

To design the models for his dissertation, Dr. Traore conducted extensive fieldwork in Senegal. He collaborated with interdisciplinary teams to collect data on transhumant practices within the Sahelian ecosystem. With this data, he created a multi-objective optimization framework to model the movement decisions of transhumants and their herds. Additionally, he developed a real-time monitoring system for transhumant herds based on discrete mathematics. His doctoral research was funded by the CaSSECS project (Carbon Sequestration and Sustainable Ecosystem Services in the Sahel).

Before pursuing his PhD, Dr. Traore obtained both a master’s and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Nazi Boni University in Burkina Faso. During his studies, he developed a rectangular grid for image processing and applied the Hough transform to detect discrete lines. His master’s and bachelor’s degrees were funded by the Burkinabe government.

Currently, Dr. Traore is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Computer Engineering and Telecommunications at the Polytechnic School of Ouagadougou. In addition to his role in student training, he is working on integrating viability theory with agent-based modeling to address sustainable development challenges in rapidly changing and complex socio-economic systems. His research has been published in several renowned conferences and scientific journals, and he continues to actively contribute to the fields of complex systems modeling and image processing.

I am currently a Senior Lecturer in Computational Epidemiology at Western Sydney University, School of Computer, Data and Mathematical Science where I am also a member of Translational Health Research Institute (THRI). I am a research associate at the Brain and Mind Centre, Sydney University and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at Psychiatry Monash Health, Monash University.
My work is in the areas of dynamic data-driven computer simulation and systems science. The product of my work is decision and research support software that applies agent and discrete event based models, and metaprogramming techniques to solve complex problems.
I am currently Chief Investigator (CI) on an international grant funded by Botnar foundation as well as on a MRFF funded grant with Brain and Mind Centre, The University of Sydney and an Associate Investigator (AI) on Suicide Prevention Australia funded research at The University of Melbourne. In he last 5 years I have been CI on 7 grants and commissioned research projects and AI on 1 grant with total value of over $8 million AUD.

Dr. William G. Kennedy, “Bill,” is continuing to learn in a third career, this time as an academic, a computational social scientist.

His first a career was in military service as a Naval Officer, starting with the Naval Academy, Naval PostGraduate School (as the first computer science student from the Naval Academy), and serving during the Cold War as part of the successful submarine-based nuclear deterrent. After six years of active duty service, he served over two decades in the Naval Reserves commanding three submarine and submarine-related reserve units and retiring after 30 years as a Navy Captain with several personal honors and awards.

His second career was in civilian public service: 10 years at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and 15 years with the Department of Energy. At the NRC he rose to be an advisor to the Executive Director for Operations and the authority on issues concerning the reliance on human operators for reactor safety, participating in two fly-away accident response teams. He left the NRC for a promotion and to lead, as technical director, the entrepreneurial effort to explore the use of light-water and accelerator technologies for the production of nuclear weapons materials. That work led to him becoming the senior policy officer responsible for strategic planning and Departmental performance commitments, leading development of the first several DOE strategic plans and formal performance agreements between the Secretary of Energy and the President.

Upon completion of doctoral research in Artificial Intelligence outside of his DOE work, he began his third career as a scientist. That started with a fully funded, three-year post-doctoral research position in cognitive robotics at the Naval Research Laboratory sponsored by the National Academy of Science and expanding his AI background with research in experimental Cognitive Science. Upon completion, he joined the Center for Social Complexity, part of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University in 2008 where he is now the Senior Scientific Advisor. His research interests range from cognition at the individual level to models of millions of agents representing individual people. He is currently leading a multi-year project to characterize the reaction of the population of a mega-city to a nuclear WMD (weapon of mass destruction) event.

Dr. Kennedy holds a B.S. in mathematics from the U.S. Naval Academy, and Master of Science in Computer Science from the Naval PostGraduate School, and a Ph.D. in Information Technology from George Mason University and has a current security clearance. Dr. Kennedy is a member of Sigma Xi, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and a life member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is a STEM volunteer with the Senior Scientists and Engineers/AAAS Volunteer Program for K-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education in the DC-area schools.