Titles

• Senior Global Futures Scientist, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory
• Assistant Professor, Leadership and Interdisciplinary Studies, College of Integrative Sciences and Arts

Biography

Mai Trinh studies leader development from the perspectives of experiential learning and complex adaptive system. She believes that leader development is a holistic and experiential process that requires coordinating efforts among independent, heterogeneous agents such as leaders, group members, and their operating environments. Her work uses principles of Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory coupled with peer and executive coaching to help current and aspiring leaders foster a positive learning identity, embrace humility, appreciate diversity, value teamwork, and adapt effectively to uncertain and changing contexts. Trinh uses agent-based computational models to simulate the collective impacts as well as policy implications of such individual-level interventions.

Mai Trinh draws on research from organization science, complex system science, education, philosophy, and sociology and uses multiple research methods such as surveys, interviews, and computational simulation in order to identify novel pathways for leaders to optimize their influence within both traditional and emerging organizations. Overall, her work highlights the multiple possibilities of effective leadership and emphasizes that one’s leadership portfolio is dependent on individual strengths, weaknesses, as well as their fit with external environments. Mai's scholarship helps people realize and enact their leadership portfolio and equips them with the skills to be able to navigate complexity, anticipate uncertainty, and adapt to changes in their local organizations and communities.

Education

• PhD, Organizational Behavior, Case Western Reserve University, 2016
• BA, Managment and Chinese Studies, Wittenberg University, 2009

Expertise

• agent-based modeling
• adaptability
• lifelong experiential learning
• leader development