General Question:
Without Central Control is self organization possible?
Specific Case:
Considering the seemingly preplanned, densely aggregated communities of the prehistoric Puebloan Southwest, is it possible that without centralized authority (control), that patches of low-density communities dispersed in a bounded landscape could quickly self-organize and construct preplanned, highly organized, prehistoric villages/towns?
With my research, I aim to improve scientific understanding of the role interactions among cognitive, behavioral, social, and demographic processes play in human adaptation to social-ecological change. Currently, I hold a Postdoctoral Research Fellow position at University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability and an Instructor position at Portland State University’s Systems Science Program. I have a Ph.D. in Systems Science (2018) from Portland State University, and an M.A. in Economics (2007) and a B.S. in Management (1999) from Boston University.
Cognitive Social Science, Social-Ecological Systems, Multi-Agent Modeling, Complex Adaptive Systems
I am strongly interested in ecological modeling and complex system and truly enjoyed working with a variety of tools to uncover patterns in empirical data and explore their ecological and evolutionary consequences. My primary research is to conduct research in the field of ‘ecological complexity’, including the development of appropriate descriptive measure to quantify the structural, spatial and temporal complexity of ecosystem and the identification of the mechanism that generate this complexity, through modeling and field studies.
Currently investigated is how biological characteristics of invasive species (dispersal strategies and demographic processes) interact with abiotic variables and resource distribution to determine establishment success and spread in a complex heterogeneous environment (Individual based modelling integrated with GIS technologies).
Development and usage of demographic microsimulation tools and applications, in particular mate-matching and statistical modeling as well as analysis of output
The Ph.D. research project is mainly focused on the study of the influence of emotional intelligence inside decision-making processes and on the social and emotional aspects of organizations.Furthermore, the research has taken into account the generative science paradigm: in this way, the general aim is the development of social simulations able to account organizational processes related with emotions and with the emotional intelligence from the bottom-up.
Agent-based simulation of social processes related to food and agricultural supply chains
I am interested in the interface between biology and computation. I am especially focused on modelling and simulation of evolutionary processes.