Mitchell Center Doctoral Candidate Builds Computer Models that Analyze Cooperative Behavior
Sandra Goff
’s sustainability science research went to the heart of the discipline’s integrative mission. She created dynamic computer models of the interactions between social, economic and environmental systems.
Working on a research assistantship with the Sustainability Solutions Initiative (SSI), a program of the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, Goff and colleagues looked at the dynamics created by the intersection of these varied disciplines. Her work was both theoretical and experimental. As a member of SSI’s Socio-Ecological Systems (SES) team, she analyzed data about cooperative behavior between UMaine faculty, SSI faculty and Bangor area residents.
“We have found that group dynamics, both within a group and between different groups, can be instrumental in creating the conditions for sustainable behavior to emerge,” Goff said of the research. “We know that there are some common principles that can aid in the successful management of common resources. We want to understand the underlying conditions which make these principles possible.”
An economist and planner by training, Goff had the chance to work with faculty from a variety of disciplines including economics, psychology and computer science.
“It was exciting to receive the opportunity to work with such a wide range of scholars. I can’t explain how comforting it was to meet so many people who didn’t really fit neatly into any one discipline,” Goff said. “I have also come to believe that it is important to have an area in which you are strongly trained so that you can contribute something of substance to group work.”
Goff, a doctoral candidate in Economics at UMaine, successfully defended her dissertation in April. She is currently a Faculty Fellow at Colby College and,this fall, will join the Economics Department at Skidmore College as an assistant professor. She will teach courses in experimental, evolutionary and environmental economics.
Goff’s UMaine faculty advisors were Tim Waring and Caroline Noblet, both assistant professors in the School of Economics.