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Steven Alexander is a Postdoctoral Fellow dually affiliated with the Stockholm Resilience Centre. As an environmental social scientist his research focuses on community-based conservation and natural resource management, environmental governance, and the human dimensions of environmental change. Past projects have examined the role of social networks for the management of marine protected areas in Jamaica and the governance dimensions of climate change adaptation in coastal communities. Here at SESYNC he is currently involved in two research projects. The first, Governing social-ecological systems – Insights from a social-ecological network perspective employs a suite of network analysis and modeling methods to understand the relationship between diverse governance arrangements, managed ecosystems, and natural resource management outcomes. Previous in-depth research in three marine reserves in Jamaica provides the empirical foundation for this project. In addition, he co-leads a graduate pursuit – Governance and Surprise – which examines how governance can better account for and accommodate surprise in social-ecological systems. Steven received his Ph.D. in Social and Ecological Sustainability from the University of Waterloo in 2015 where he was affiliated with the Environmental Change and Governance Group. He also holds a M.S. in Science Education from Montana State University – Bozeman. However, it was a B.S. in Geology from St. Lawrence University, a small liberal arts college in northern New York, and a semester abroad in East Africa studying conservation and development that provided the foundation for considering the complexities of human-environment interactions and bridging the natural and social sciences.