The big picture question driving my research is how do complex systems of interactions among individuals / agents result in emergent properties and how do those emergent properties feedback to affect individual / agent decisions. I have explored this big picture question in a number of different contexts including the evolution of cooperation, suburban sprawl, traffic patterns, financial systems, land-use and land-change in urban systems, and most recently social media. For all of these explorations, I employ the tools of complex systems, most importantly agent-based modeling.
My current research focus is on understanding the dynamics of social media, examining how concepts like information, authority, influence and trust diffuse in these new media formats. This allows us to ask questions such as who do users trust to provide them with the information that they want? Which entities have the greatest influence on social media users? How do fads and fashions arise in social media? What happens when time is critical to the diffusion process such as an in a natural disaster? I have employed agent-based modeling, machine learning, geographic information systems, and network analysis to understand and start to answer these questions.
Ms. Stringfellow is a PhD candidate whose goal is to identify ways to build and leverage the natural support systems of people who are experiencing problems related to their illicit drug use. Her current interest is in how these support systems operate in small towns with limited formal resources for quitting. To that end, she recently began conducting in-depth qualitative interviews for her dissertation in a semi-rural county in eastern Missouri. These interviews will be used to build an agent-based model, a type of dynamic simulation modeling that can be used to represent heterogeneous actors with multiple goals and perceptions. As a research assistant and dissertation fellow with the Social System Design Lab, she has also been trained in system dynamics, an aggregate-level dynamic simulation modeling method.
Prior to joining the PhD program, she worked as a research associate at the Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program from 2008-2012. BHCHP is an exemplar model of providing patient-centered care for people who have experienced homelessness. There, she gained significant experience in managing research projects, collecting qualitative and quantitative data, and program evaluation. She earned her MSW from the University of Michigan in 2007, with a focus on policy and evaluation in community and social systems, and a BA in sociology in 2005, also at the University of Michigan. Ms. Stringfellow was born and raised in a small town in Michigan.
Eric has graduate degrees in urban planning and policy and sociology and an undergraduate degree in biology. He has worked on multiple collaborative and interdisciplinary projects and is skilled at engaging communities and other stakeholders. He is adept at qualitative research and has earned a Certificate in Geospatial Analysis and Visualization, demonstrating proficiency in Adobe Suite, ArcGIS, agent-based modeling and system dynamics modeling. He is currently writing manuscripts for publication based on his work on motivating energy retrofit decisions, energy-related urban planning, municipal decision-making on infrastructure investments, and other work on resilience and sustainability.
Conducts urban planning and policy research on energy efficiency, environmental, and infrastructure decision making.
Modeling and simulation of complex systems, particularly, interbank networks; economic models and critical phenomena modeling
Postdoctoral researcher at Institute of Economics, Polish Academy of Sciences and in Macroprudential Research Division at National Bank of Poland. She graduated in Mathematics (Jagiellonian University, Poland) and in Economics (University of Alcala, Spain). In 2017 she obtained Fulbright Advanced Research Award. In the United States, she carried out research on systemic risk and complex systems. Her doctoral dissertation was about the measurement and modeling of systemic risk using simulation methods and complex systems approach (the results to be published by Palgrave Macmillan US). Previously, she gained experience on agent-based modeling while working with Juan Luis Santos on the European Commission FP 7 MOSIPS project (http://www.mosips.eu/).
Mathematics, complex systems, financial modeling, agent-based modeling, econometrics, macroprudential policies, systemic risk, cental banking
Modeling, companion modeling, role playing games, serious games, multi-agent systems, agent-oriented simulation, complex systems, water management, artificial intelligence
See my website for details.
Interested in numerical models and new conceptual ideas, applications from industry to medicine.
I focus on numerical modeling of mechanics of solid materials and cell mechanics. The models that I developed so far address granular matters, bio-fluids, cellular tissues, and individual cells.
I further develop Agent-based Models, which are methods to predict collective behavior from individual dynamics controlled by rules or differential equations. Examples: tumor growth, swarms, crowd movement.
The methods I used are Particle-based methods which offer great flexibility within physical modeling, and can operate in a large range of scales, from atomistic scales (e.g. Molecular Dynamics) to continuum approaches (e.g. Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics).