Charles Sturt University (CSU) lecturer Dr Keith Nesbitt’s research on a design pattern for complex systems has won him a 12-month postdoctoral appointment to the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) in Boston, USA. Dr Nesbitt, a lecturer in Information Technology at CSU, has been working in the relatively new field of science known as complex systems. The study of complex systems is about understanding indirect effects and the problems we find difficult to solve. They have causes and effects that are not obviously related. Examples of complex systems include beehives, ant colonies and even the stockmarket, as well as the human brain. NECSI, where Dr Nesbitt will be based, is an independent non-profit educational and research institution dedicated to advancing the study of complex systems. NECSI was established as a collaboration of faculty from Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Brandeis and other academic institutions. “I’m keen to take my research to the next level. That would be the ultimate goal: to try and understand what they call the theory of the mind”, said Dr Nesbitt.