Contact Information
sean.geobey@uwaterloo.ca
EV3 4259
Twitter: @sgeobey
LinkedIn: Sean Geobey's LinkedIn
Sean Geobey brings applied expertise in social innovation theory, sustainable finance, planning, governance, and decision-theory to his research and teaching. As Director of the Waterloo Institute for Complexity and Innovation (WICI - https://uwaterloo.ca/complexity-innovation/) and Co-Director of the Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience (WISIR - https://uwaterloo.ca/waterloo-institute-for-social-innovation-and-resilience/) his teaching includes cutting edge work in social entrepreneurship and social innovation, with a pedagogical approach that uses problem-based, community-engaged learning. His work uses complex adaptive systems theory and community-based research to explore governance and design issues in collective action, often using large-scale co-design processes such as social innovation labs. Much of this work has been in the social finance sector, where he has led the Legacy Leadership Lab (https://uwaterloo.ca/legacy-leadership-lab/legacy-leadership-lab-cultivating-social-acquisition) and the systems mapping and principles focused evaluation of the Investment Readiness Program (https://uwaterloo.ca/waterloo-institute-for-social-innovation-and-resilience/projects/investment-readiness-program-20). He has been a Fellow at the Filene Research Institute and is currently Social Capital Partners Fellow at the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing.
Courses Taught
- ENBUS 612 – Social Entrepreneurship and Scaling Social Innovation
- ECDEV 605 – Entrepreneurship and Sustainable Small Business Development
Selected Publications
- Campbell, T., Geobey, S., & Ronson, M. (2021). The Legacy Leadership Lab: Cultivating the social acquisition movement. Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience. https://uwaterloo.ca/legacy-leadership-lab/legacy-leadership-lab-cultivating-social-acquisition
- Geobey, S., Campbell, S., & Kearney, N. (2023). Testing participatory budgeting voting design: Two cases from the city of Kitchener. Local Development & Society, 1-20. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/26883597.2023.2227359
- Piscitelli, A., & Geobey, S. (2020). Representative Board Governance: What Role Do Nonprofit Board Directors Have in Representing the Interest of Their Constituents?. Canadian Journal of Nonprofit & Social Economy Research/Revue canadienne de recherche sur les OSBL et l'économie sociale, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.29173/cjnser.2020v11n1a323
- Geobey, S., and K. A. McGowan. 2019. Panarchy, ontological and epistemological phenomena, and the Plague. Ecology and Society 24(4):23.
https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-11089-240423 - Geobey, S., & Callahan, J. (2017). Managing Impact Portfolios: A Conceptual View of Scale. ACRN Oxford Journal of Finance and Risk Perspectives, 6(4), 17-36.
Degrees
- Ph.D - Environment and Resource Studies, University of Waterloo, 2014
- M.A. - Economics, Queen’s University, 2005
- BA (Hons.) - Economics & Political Science, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2003