Donella Meadows

Donella Hager "Dana" Meadows (March 13, 1941 – February 20, 2001) was an American environmental scientist, educator, and writer. She is best known as the lead author of the book The Limits to Growth and Thinking In Systems: A Primer.

Born in Elgin, Illinois, Meadows was educated in science, receiving a B.A. in chemistry from Carleton College in 1963 and a Ph.D. in biophysics from Harvard in 1968. After a yearlong trip from England to Sri Lanka and back, she became a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a member of a team in the department created by Jay Forrester, the inventor of system dynamics as well as the principle of magnetic data storage for computers.

Meadows taught at Dartmouth College for 29 years, beginning in 1972. Meadows was honored both as a Pew Scholar in Conservation and Environment (1991) and as a MacArthur Fellow (1994). She received the Walter C. Paine Science Education Award in 1990. Posthumously, she received the John H. Chafee Excellence in Environmental Affairs Award for 2001, presented by the Conservation Law Foundation.

Meadows wrote "The Global Citizen," a weekly column on world events from a systems point of view. Many of these columns were compiled and published as a book by the same name. Her work is recognized as a formative influence on hundreds of other academic studies, government policy initiatives, and international agreements.

Meadows was a longtime member of the United States Association for the Club of Rome, which instituted an award in her memory, the US Association for the Club of Rome Donella Meadows Award in Sustainable Global Actions. The award is given to an outstanding individual who has created actions in a global framework toward the sustainability goals Meadows expressed in her writings.