{
  "schema_version": "1.0",
  "canonical_url": "https://transduction.systems/entries/person_donella_meadows/",
  "release": "0.35",
  "citation": "Taylor, B. P. (2026). Donella Meadows. The Necessary Tangle, release 0.35. https://transduction.systems/entries/person_donella_meadows/",
  "licence": "CC BY-SA 4.0 for original atlas text and data; linked works retain their own terms",
  "entry": {
    "id": "person_donella_meadows",
    "label": "Donella Meadows",
    "entity_type": "person",
    "description": "A systems analyst, author and educator whose work joined system dynamics, environmental analysis and practical disciplines for understanding, intervening in and living with complex systems.",
    "aliases": [
      "Dana Meadows",
      "Donella H. Meadows",
      "Donella Meadows",
      "Donna Meadows",
      "Meadows"
    ],
    "boundary_ring": "0",
    "inclusion_reason": "expertise_and_public_sources_release_0_13",
    "status": "accepted",
    "source_ids": [
      "src_prh_thinking_in_systems_2008",
      "src_meadows_dancing_with_systems",
      "src_meadows_leverage_points"
    ],
    "set_tags": [
      "systems",
      "human_lineage",
      "expertise",
      "release_0_13",
      "named-coverage-audit",
      "release_0_18"
    ],
    "espoused_labels": [],
    "observed_clusters": [],
    "canonical_definition": "A systems analyst, author and educator whose work joined system dynamics, environmental analysis and practical disciplines for understanding, intervening in and living with complex systems.",
    "valid_from": "",
    "valid_to": "",
    "external_ids": "{}",
    "geographies": [],
    "licence": "",
    "review_status": "curator_checked_public_sources",
    "reviewed_by": "Benjamin P Taylor",
    "reviewed_at": "2026-08-11",
    "x": 0.48,
    "y": 0.02,
    "canonical_id": "person_donella_meadows",
    "public_visibility": "public",
    "publication_level": "profile",
    "public_stub_text": "",
    "public_source_count": 3,
    "no_public_link_count": 0
  },
  "profile": {
    "node_id": "person_donella_meadows",
    "title": "Donella Meadows",
    "profile_status": "curator_checked_public_sources",
    "canonical_definition": "A systems analyst, author and educator whose work joined system dynamics, environmental analysis and practical disciplines for understanding, intervening in and living with complex systems.",
    "summary": "Donella Meadows connected rigorous system dynamics with lucid public explanation and practical disciplines for intervention, learning and responsible action.",
    "why_it_matters": "Her work brings feedback, stocks, flows, delays, resilience and leverage into public and organisational practice while repeatedly warning against the fantasy of complete prediction and control.",
    "key_distinctions": [
      "understanding vs control",
      "event vs behaviour over time",
      "parameter change vs structural leverage",
      "measurement vs value"
    ],
    "historical_lineage": [
      "MIT system dynamics",
      "Limits to Growth",
      "sustainability analysis",
      "systems education"
    ],
    "logical_antecedents": [
      "stocks and flows",
      "feedback",
      "delay",
      "nonlinearity",
      "goal"
    ],
    "dependent_subsequents": [
      "Thinking in Systems",
      "Leverage Points",
      "Dancing With Systems"
    ],
    "practice_connections": [
      "policy modelling",
      "sustainability",
      "organisational learning",
      "intervention design"
    ],
    "espoused_lineages": [],
    "observed_clusters": [],
    "common_misreadings": [
      "leverage points are a universal recipe",
      "systems analysis enables control",
      "only quantifiable variables matter"
    ],
    "open_checks": [
      "develop system-dynamics lineage",
      "connect Limits to Growth",
      "map criticism and later applications"
    ],
    "source_ids": [
      "src_prh_thinking_in_systems_2008",
      "src_meadows_dancing_with_systems",
      "src_meadows_leverage_points"
    ],
    "evidence_ids": [],
    "last_researched": "2026-08-11",
    "review_status": "curator_checked_public_sources",
    "reviewed_by": "Benjamin P Taylor",
    "reviewed_at": "2026-08-11",
    "editorial_note": "Developed from public primary, institutional and publisher sources. Open to correction, rival interpretation and stronger evidence."
  },
  "connections": [
    {
      "id": "e_13_dancing_meadows",
      "source": "publication_dancing_with_systems",
      "target": "person_donella_meadows",
      "relation_type": "authored_by",
      "relation_family": "documentary",
      "directed": "true",
      "dependency_kind": "",
      "confidence": "0.88",
      "claim_status": "accepted",
      "source_ids": [
        "src_meadows_dancing_with_systems"
      ],
      "evidence_ids": [],
      "source_locator": "Release 0.13 public primary, institutional and publisher sources",
      "valid_from": "",
      "valid_to": "",
      "scope_conditions": "The wording is limited to the named public sources. Authorship, methodological development, conceptual dependence and practical use remain distinct claims.",
      "assertion_mode": "asserted",
      "inference_method": "curatorial synthesis of public primary, institutional and publisher sources",
      "claim_id": "",
      "reviewed_by": "Benjamin P Taylor",
      "reviewed_at": "2026-08-11",
      "notes": "The Donella Meadows Project identifies Meadows as author.",
      "plain_phrase": "was authored by",
      "public_review_label": "supported working statement"
    },
    {
      "id": "e_13_leverage_meadows",
      "source": "publication_leverage_points_meadows",
      "target": "person_donella_meadows",
      "relation_type": "authored_by",
      "relation_family": "documentary",
      "directed": "true",
      "dependency_kind": "",
      "confidence": "0.88",
      "claim_status": "accepted",
      "source_ids": [
        "src_meadows_leverage_points"
      ],
      "evidence_ids": [],
      "source_locator": "Release 0.13 public primary, institutional and publisher sources",
      "valid_from": "",
      "valid_to": "",
      "scope_conditions": "The wording is limited to the named public sources. Authorship, methodological development, conceptual dependence and practical use remain distinct claims.",
      "assertion_mode": "asserted",
      "inference_method": "curatorial synthesis of public primary, institutional and publisher sources",
      "claim_id": "",
      "reviewed_by": "Benjamin P Taylor",
      "reviewed_at": "2026-08-11",
      "notes": "The Donella Meadows Project identifies Meadows as author.",
      "plain_phrase": "was authored by",
      "public_review_label": "supported working statement"
    },
    {
      "id": "e_13_thinking_meadows",
      "source": "publication_thinking_in_systems",
      "target": "person_donella_meadows",
      "relation_type": "authored_by",
      "relation_family": "documentary",
      "directed": "true",
      "dependency_kind": "",
      "confidence": "0.88",
      "claim_status": "accepted",
      "source_ids": [
        "src_prh_thinking_in_systems_2008"
      ],
      "evidence_ids": [],
      "source_locator": "Release 0.13 public primary, institutional and publisher sources",
      "valid_from": "",
      "valid_to": "",
      "scope_conditions": "The wording is limited to the named public sources. Authorship, methodological development, conceptual dependence and practical use remain distinct claims.",
      "assertion_mode": "asserted",
      "inference_method": "curatorial synthesis of public primary, institutional and publisher sources",
      "claim_id": "",
      "reviewed_by": "Benjamin P Taylor",
      "reviewed_at": "2026-08-11",
      "notes": "The publisher identifies Donella Meadows as author.",
      "plain_phrase": "was authored by",
      "public_review_label": "supported working statement"
    }
  ],
  "claims": [],
  "sources": [
    {
      "id": "src_prh_thinking_in_systems_2008",
      "title": "Thinking in Systems: A Primer",
      "source_type": "official_publisher_book_page",
      "quality_tier": "A",
      "access": "public_metadata",
      "url": "https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/801035/thinking-in-systems-by-donella-meadows/",
      "date": "2008-12-05",
      "notes": "The publisher records Donella Meadows as author and Diana Wright as editor and describes the book as a practice-facing introduction to systems structures, feedback and intervention.",
      "creators": [
        "Donella Meadows",
        "Diana Wright"
      ],
      "doi": "",
      "isbn": "978-1-60358-055-7",
      "publisher": "Chelsea Green",
      "licence": "publisher_terms",
      "archived_url": "",
      "content_hash": "",
      "review_status": "checked",
      "last_checked": "2026-08-11",
      "public_link_status": "public_link"
    },
    {
      "id": "src_meadows_dancing_with_systems",
      "title": "Dancing With Systems",
      "source_type": "primary_author_archive",
      "quality_tier": "A",
      "access": "public",
      "url": "https://donellameadows.org/archives/dancing-with-systems/",
      "date": "2004; archived current",
      "notes": "The Donella Meadows Project publishes the essay and its practical disciplines for acting with feedback-rich, nonlinear and partly unpredictable systems.",
      "creators": [
        "Donella Meadows"
      ],
      "doi": "",
      "isbn": "",
      "publisher": "The Donella Meadows Project",
      "licence": "source_terms",
      "archived_url": "",
      "content_hash": "",
      "review_status": "checked",
      "last_checked": "2026-08-11",
      "public_link_status": "public_link"
    },
    {
      "id": "src_meadows_leverage_points",
      "title": "Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System",
      "source_type": "primary_author_archive",
      "quality_tier": "A",
      "access": "public",
      "url": "https://donellameadows.org/archives/leverage-points-places-to-intervene-in-a-system/",
      "date": "1999; archived current",
      "notes": "The Donella Meadows Project publishes Meadows's ordered list of places to intervene, together with her cautions about context, resistance, uncertainty and paradigm flexibility.",
      "creators": [
        "Donella Meadows"
      ],
      "doi": "",
      "isbn": "",
      "publisher": "The Donella Meadows Project",
      "licence": "source_terms",
      "archived_url": "",
      "content_hash": "",
      "review_status": "checked",
      "last_checked": "2026-08-11",
      "public_link_status": "public_link"
    }
  ],
  "evidence_locators": [],
  "reuse_note": "Preserve source attribution, scope, and review status. Source documents and evidence excerpts are excluded."
}