Béla Antal Bánáthy (born 1943 in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

) is an American

systems scientist Systems science, also referred to as systems research or simply systems, is a transdisciplinary field that is concerned with understanding simple and complex systems in nature and society, which leads to the advancements of formal, natural, socia ...

, who teaches part-time at the International Systems Institute at the

Saybrook Graduate School Saybrook University is a private university in Pasadena, California. It was founded in 1971 by Eleanor Camp Criswell and others. It offers postgraduate education with a focus on humanistic psychology. It features low residency, master's, and ...

Biography

Bánáthy received his B.S. from

California State University, Fresno California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) is a public university in Fresno, California, United States. It is part of the California State University system. The university had a fall 2020 enrollment of 25,341 students. It offers 60 ba ...

in 1965, his

M.S. A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medicine ...

in Information Science from

Washington State University Washington State University (WSU, or colloquially Wazzu) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Pullman, Washington, United States. Founded in 1890, WSU is also one of the oldest Land-grant uni ...

in 1969, and his Ph.D. in

Educational Administration Academic administration is a branch of university or college employees responsible for the maintenance and supervision of the institution and separate from the faculty or academics, although some personnel may have joint responsibilities. Some ...

from the

U.C. Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkeley ...

, in 1991. In 1969 he started working at the

Monterey Peninsula College Monterey Peninsula College (MPC) is a public community college in Monterey, California. Established in 1947, it is a part of the California Community Colleges system. There are two additional MPC campuses located in Marina, CA, and Seaside, ...

, where he chaired the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems from 1973 to 1997. From 1974 to 1990 he served as Director of the Computer Center. He joined

as an adjunct faculty member in 1993 and teaches courses in Systems Inquiry. Bánáthy has been an active member of the

International Society for the Systems Sciences The International Society for the Systems Sciences (ISSS) is a worldwide organization for systems sciences. The overall purpose of the ISSS is: to promote the development of conceptual frameworks based on general system theory, as well as their im ...

(ISSS), and has served as Chair of the ISSS Council, Chair of the special interest group on

Information Systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems comprise four components: task, people, structu ...

Design, on the Editorial Board of Applied Systems Studies, Organizational Transformation & Social Change, and the International Journal of Information Technologies & the Systems Approach. He was President of ISSS in 1999. He is a Research Fellow of the International Systems Institute, a member of the General Evolutionary Research Group, Member of the Executive Board of the

Institute for 21st Century Agoras An institute is an organizational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes ca ...

, and is working with the Foundations of Information Science research group. Béla A. Bánáthy is the son of

Béla H. Bánáthy Béla Heinrich Bánáthy (; December 1, 1919 – September 4, 2003) was a Hungarian-American linguist, and Professor at San Jose State University and UC Berkeley. He is known as founder of the White Stag Leadership Development Program, establi ...

Work

Bánáthy's research interests are in the fields of "the general theories of

system A system is a group of interacting or interrelated elements that act according to a set of rules to form a unified whole. A system, surrounded and influenced by its open system (systems theory), environment, is described by its boundaries, str ...

s, theories of

evolution Evolution is the change in the heritable Phenotypic trait, characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. It occurs when evolutionary processes such as natural selection and genetic drift act on genetic variation, re ...

, the foundations of information science, design of

information systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems comprise four components: task, people, structu ...

, and design of

social systems In sociology, a social system is the patterned network of relationships constituting a coherent whole that exist between individuals, groups, and institutions. It is the formal Social structure, structure of role and status that can form in a smal ...

". His research in the new millennium has focussed on the "relationship between the ontological and epistemological aspects of

complex system A complex system is a system composed of many components that may interact with one another. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication sy ...

s, and the development of a corresponding approach to ecological as well as socio-cultural informatics".2003 ISSS Annual Meeting and Conference
,

(ISSS). Retrieved 25 April 2008.

Publications

Bánáthy has published "several articles in systems related publications including:

Behavioral Science Behavioural science is the branch of science concerned with Human behavior, human behaviour.Hallsworth, M. (2023). A manifesto for applying behavioural science. ''Nature Human Behaviour'', ''7''(3), 310-322. While the term can technically be ap ...

, BioSystems,

Cybernetics Cybernetics is the transdisciplinary study of circular causal processes such as feedback and recursion, where the effects of a system's actions (its outputs) return as inputs to that system, influencing subsequent action. It is concerned with ...

and Systems, Information Systems Architecture and Technology, Systems Practice, Systems Research, and World Futures". A selection: * 1990, ''Proc. of the ISSS Int. Society for the Systems Sciences 34th Annual Conference'',

, & B. A. Banathy (Eds.), Portland, Oregon, 8–13 July 1990. * 1991, ''Examining performance in community colleges: Data envelopment analysis as a means of increasing the domain of inquiry'', Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara. * 1999, ''Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Conference of the International Society for the Systems Sciences'', (eds.) Asilomar, CA, June 26 - July 2, 1999 Articles: * 1996, "Design learning resources". with: Jenks, L., Banathy, B. H., Christakis, A., Frantz, T., Hood, P., & Rowland, G. In G. Rowland (Ed.), ''Proceedings of the seventh international conversation on social systems design'' (pp. 18–35). Carmel, CA: International Systems Institute. * 1997, "Information, evolution, and change", in: ''Journal Systemic Practice and Action Research''. Springer Issue Volume 10, Number 1 / February, 1997. * 1999, "An information typology for the understanding of social systems", In ''Systems Research and Behavioral Science'' 16(6), pp 479–494. * 2000, "Navigating bounded and unbounded species" in: ''Sys. Res.'' 17 pp 481–484.

References

External links

Faculty description of Bánáthy
at Saybrook Graduate School {{DEFAULTSORT:Banathy, Bela A. 1943 births Living people American systems scientists California State University, Fresno alumni Washington State University alumni UC Berkeley Graduate School of Education alumni Hungarian emigrants to the United States Hungarian systems scientists American science writers Writers from Budapest Presidents of the International Society for the Systems Sciences