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The PhD Qualifying Examination Committee has commended Gryphon Theriault-Loubier in the Sustainability Management PhD program for an “Outstanding Paper” submitted for the spring SEED PhD Qualifying Examination held March 21-25, 2022. Gryphon’s paper is titled “A Lineage of Systems and Sustainability Management: The implications of a design orientation in the field of sustainability management”.

In his own words, after receiving feedback on the paper, Gryphon has noted: “The core idea of the paper is relatively simple. I’m proposing that the way we do systems in management needs some updating, particularly in view of complexity. I think we often assume control where that assumption is undue, and probably unnecessary. We don’t seem to have much of a sense of rhythm or timing, and we don’t seem to have a good handle on the way the controller relates to the system being controlled. When faced with problem sets that challenge us, we tend to double down in our habits.”

Gryphon’s paper will be added to the Outstanding Paper depository – available to our PhD students in the SEED PhD Teams group. Gryphon works under the supervision of Prof Sean Geobey.

The purpose of the qualifying exam, written at the beginning of the second year, is to demonstrate that a PhD student has the appropriate academic background – including a foundation and breadth of knowledge in the field of study – and the capacity to engage in scholarly communications to be successful in the PhD program in Sustainability Management. The three voting members reviewed and discussed anonymized papers against the established assessment criteria.

The honour is accompanied by a $500 cash award.

More information on the PhD in Sustainability Management