Civitas Systems
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About Me

Dave Zelinka, PhD

Founder of Civitas Systems

Civil systems engineer (PhD) and climate data scientist, 16 published works, and author of a published method for turning literature into source-traceable causal models.

New here? How I work covers the mechanics of an engagement.

16
Publications
15+
Years experience
4
Degrees
Dave Zelinka

Civitas Systems is the consulting practice of Dave Zelinka, PhD — an applied complexity scientist and engineer (a civil systems engineer and climate data scientist by training) with 15+ years across consulting, research, and government. The practice exists for the kind of problem that doesn't fit a single discipline: climate that's also a governance problem, network analysis that's also a peace and conflict question, GHG accounting that's also a policy-modeling exercise. Most engagements draw on more than one kind of work at once, and on the systems approaches throughout, by design.

The clients are researchers, NGOs, foundations, governments, and mission-driven organizations working on climate and emissions, the energy transition, environment and ecology, peace and conflict, corruption and governance, and international development. Oil and gas extraction, defense and weapons systems, and surveillance are out — unless the engagement is specifically about reducing their harm. The refusal list is part of the offer.

The work is research-grade by default. I've published 16 works across the domains. I default to open-source tools so clients can keep using what I build. I document methodology in enough detail that another competent practitioner could reproduce it. Where uncertainty is real, I show it. Where assumptions matter, I name them.

Career

Where the work has been

Government, enterprise, research and academic roles — plus the degrees and certifications behind them — one row per role on a shared 2008–2026 time axis, so the overlaps show. Each row’s full name is on the left; its bar sits on the axis. Category is shown by color and a leading icon. Click a bar for the detail, or click a legend entry to filter a category.

Click a role bar to see its employer, title, location, dates, and a one-line description.

Career and education, full list with dates

Government

  • State of Colorado — Emissions Inventory Data Analysis Specialist, Denver, CO (Dec 2025–present). Building a multi-engine document-extraction pipeline (Python, OCR, LLMs) for the state's regulatory emissions archives.

Enterprise

  • Optera — Data Solutions Lead, Boulder, CO (Oct 2022–Mar 2025). Led climate and GHG-accounting data work: reference-data infrastructure and emission-factor classification for corporate disclosure.
  • Optera — Consultant, Corporate Climate Action, Boulder, CO (Mar 2022–Aug 2024). Corporate climate-accounting and GHG-inventory consulting.
  • Optera — Data Analyst, Boulder, CO (Sep 2021–Mar 2022). Climate and GHG-accounting data analysis. (Optera was formerly Point380, Inc.)

Research & academia

  • Santa Fe Institute — Computational Modeler for Peacebuilding, Santa Fe, NM (Feb 2022–Dec 2022). Complex-systems and computational modeling for peacebuilding.
  • United States Institute of Peace — Research Data Scientist, Network Analysis, Contract, Bosnia/Balkans (Jan 2021–Mar 2025). Graph data science mapping political-corruption networks in Bosnia — shared directorships, financial flows, and appointments; findings presented to the European Council on Foreign Relations.
  • United States Institute of Peace — Systems Thinking Expert, Burkina Faso (Aug 2019–May 2021). Systems-thinking and causal-loop work on judicial reform in Manga: I designed the method and the tools and did the analysis between six working sessions run by local facilitators. USIP credits my contribution to its own account of the project.
  • RASEI, University of Colorado — Postdoctoral Researcher, Boulder, CO (Apr 2019–Aug 2021). NSF-funded power-plant emissions research — the analysis behind the Environmental Research Letters paper on hyper-polluting plants.
  • Metropolitan State University of Denver — Affiliate Professor, Sustainable Systems Engineering, Denver, CO (Aug 2018–May 2019). Teaching and curriculum development in the Sustainable Systems Engineering program.
  • Arava Institute for Environmental Studies — Research Intern & Teaching Assistant, Ketura, Israel (Feb 2018–Jun 2018). Transboundary water-management research and teaching.
  • Mortenson Center for Global Engineering, CU Boulder — Graduate Researcher & Teaching Assistant, Boulder, CO (Feb 2016–May 2019). Systems and sustainability research and teaching in global/humanitarian engineering; presented at UN Headquarters.
  • National Renewable Energy Laboratory — Renewable Energy Market Transformation Graduate Intern, Golden, CO (Jul 2014–Jun 2015). Renewable-energy market-transformation research.

Venture

  • Civitas Systems — Founder, Colorado (2018–present). My independent, research-grade consulting practice — methods built to be checked, applied across climate, governance, and development.

Degrees and certifications

  • MIT — Professional Certificate, Applied Data Science (2025). Continuing education in applied data science and AI for decision-making.
  • University of Colorado Boulder — PhD, Civil Systems Engineering (2016–2019). Dissertation: systems approaches to transdisciplinary sustainable development.
  • University of Colorado Boulder — MS, Global Engineering (2016–2019). Completed concurrently with the PhD.
  • University of Colorado Boulder — Graduate Certificate, Engineering for Developing Communities (2016–2018). Graduate certificate in engineering for developing communities.
  • NCEES — FE (Fundamentals of Engineering), Environmental (2013). Passed the NCEES Fundamentals of Engineering (Environmental) exam — the EIT-qualifying step.
  • University of Colorado Denver — MS, Environmental & Sustainability Engineering (2013–2016). Master's thesis: environmental impact assessment of hydraulic-fracturing chemicals.
  • Purdue University — Minor, Economics (2010–2013). Economics minor, completed alongside the BS.
  • Purdue University — BS, Environmental & Ecological Engineering (2008–2013). Part of Purdue's first Environmental & Ecological Engineering graduating class.

Publications

The published record

16 published works in systems science, sustainability, peacebuilding, and political corruption.

Journal articles

  1. Grant, D., Zelinka, D., & Mitova, S. (2021). Reducing CO2 emissions by targeting the world's hyper-polluting power plants. Environmental Research Letters, 16(9), 094022. Read the case → doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ac13f1
  2. Zelinka, D., & Amadei, B. (2019). A Systems Approach for Modeling Interactions Among the Sustainable Development Goals, Part 1: Cross-Impact Network Analysis. International Journal of System Dynamics Applications, 8(1), 23–40. doi:10.4018/IJSDA.2019010102
  3. Zelinka, D., & Amadei, B. (2019). A Systems Approach for Modeling Interactions Among the Sustainable Development Goals, Part 2: System Dynamics. International Journal of System Dynamics Applications, 8(1), 41–59. doi:10.4018/IJSDA.2019010103

Book chapters & encyclopedia

  1. Zelinka, D., & Daher, B. (2021). Modeling the Sustainable Development Nexus as a Complicated-Coupled System: Static Cross-Impact Network Analysis. In A. T. Azar (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Modeling, Analysis, and Control of Complex Systems. IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-5788-4.ch001
  2. Zelinka, D., & Daher, B. (2021). Modeling the Sustainable Development Nexus as a Complex-Coupled System: System Dynamics Modeling. In A. T. Azar (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Modeling, Analysis, and Control of Complex Systems. IGI Global. doi:10.4018/978-1-7998-5788-4.ch002
  3. Daher, B., & Zelinka, D. (2021). Water-Energy-Food Interconnections: Methods, Tools, and Cross-Sectoral Decision Making. In Clean Water and Sanitation, Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Springer, Cham. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-70061-8_113-1

Conference papers

  1. Zelinka, D., & Amadei, B. (2018). A new insecure-secure diffusion archetype to model complex anthropocentric systems. 36th International Conference of the System Dynamics Society, Reykjavík, Iceland.
  2. Zelinka, D., & Amadei, B. (2018). A Systems Approach to Modeling Corruption: Bridging the Disciplinary Divide Between the Social and Technical Sciences. 24th ISDRS Conference, Messina, Italy.
  3. Zelinka, D., & Amadei, B. (2018). Analyzing sustainable development: systems-based methods and modeling tools for the Sustainable Development Goals. 24th ISDRS Conference, Messina, Italy.
  4. Amadei, B., & Zelinka, D. (2018). Integrated Modeling of the Water-Energy-Land-Food Nexus: Importance of Context, Scale, Boundary, and Community Capacity. 24th ISDRS Conference, Messina, Italy.
  5. Zelinka, D., & Amadei, B. (2017). A Methodology to Model the Integrated Nature of the Sustainable Development Goals: Importance for Engineering Education. ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Columbus, OH.

Theses

  1. Zelinka, D. (2019). Systems Approaches to Transdisciplinary Sustainable Development Issues. Doctoral dissertation, University of Colorado Boulder.
  2. Zelinka, D. (2016). An environmental impact assessment of chemicals in hydraulic fracturing operations for a selection of oil and gas wells compared to coal-bed methane wells in Colorado. Master's thesis, University of Colorado Denver.

Other writing

  1. Dehghan, J., & Nama, S. (2021, October 14). A Sahel Town Builds a Way to Improve Reforms—and Foreign Aid. United States Institute of Peace. Contributor: D. Zelinka — USIP's note: “Dave Zelinka, a U.S.-based systems thinking expert who worked with USIP on the project in Manga, contributed to this article.” Relates to Burkina Faso judicial reform →

Submitted & preprints

These are not peer-reviewed. I include them because they reflect current work, but they carry less weight than the reviewed record above and their claims may change.

  1. Halash, S., Zelinka, D., & Amadei, B. (2024). Using system dynamics to assess and model community capacities and interaction patterns: domestic wastewater treatment in the West Bank. Submitted.
  2. Zelinka, D. L., & Karunanithi, A. T. (2024). A comparative ecotoxicity impact assessment of hydraulic fracturing chemicals used in oil-and-gas and coal-bed-methane wells. Research Square preprint. doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-4356156/v1

Full list on ResearchGate ↗

Three operating commitments

  • The methodology will hold up to peer review even if nobody asks it to.
  • The code runs after I'm gone — clients receive runnable artifacts they own outright.
  • The work only goes to organizations whose mission I'd defend in public.

Currently: Emissions Inventory Data Analysis Specialist at the State of Colorado, building a multi-engine document extraction pipeline (Python, OCR, LLMs) for the state's regulatory archives — while continuing Civitas Systems consulting on a selective basis.

I live at the eastern edge of the Rockies in Arvada, Colorado. Off-hours: brewing beer, slowly turning my apartment into a cat jungle, using my systems engineering training to over-optimize grand strategy games, and reading more cyberpunk and Lovecraftian fiction than is probably advisable.