Losing Dr. Brenda Zimmerman
As I have been diving into the worlds of complexity and especially the question of evaluation in the complex domain, one of the people on my list to meet was Dr. Brenda Zimmerman, who taught at York University. News finally came through today that she died in a car accident on December 16. Her work is summed up in this notice from the Plexus Institute:
Dr. Zimmerman is co-author of several books, including Getting to Maybe: How the World Is Changed, which she wrote with Frances Westley and Michael Quinn Patton, and Edgeware: Insights from complexity Science for HealthCare Leaders, which she wrote with Paul Plsek and Curt Lindberg. She wrote the report “Complicated and Complex Systems: What would Successful Reform Medicare Look Like?” with Sholom Glouberman, published in 2002 by the Commission on the Future of Health Care in Canada. She also wrote numerous book chapters, including “Generative Relationships: STAR,” with Bryan Hayday, in Glenda Eoyang’s book Voices from the Field, and she authored two chapters in the book On the Edge: Nursing in the Age of Complexity, by Curt Lindberg, Sue Nash and Claire Lindberg.
Curt Lindberg, a founder and former president of Plexus Institute and another of Dr. Zimmerman’s co-authors, called her death a tragic loss. Henri Lipmanowicz, a founder of Plexus and its Board Chairman Emeritus, said, “We were lucky to have known her. She was one of a kind. A beautiful and caring person.”
Michael Quinn Patton is an organizational development and evaluation consultant, and complexity scholar. “Without Brenda there would have been no Getting to Maybe book and no subsequent Developmental Evaluation book,” Patton said of the book he co-authored with Dr. Zimmerman and the pioneering book on evaluation he later wrote. He noted that Chapter 4 in Developmental Evaluation tells something of Dr. Zimmerman’s influence on his own work and on the evaluation field generally.
via Brenda Zimmerman: Complexity Scholar and Mentor to Many – Plexus Institute.
A huge loss to her family and friends of course, and to the field in general.
