NICO - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Clinical Assistant Professor / Kellogg School of Management / NICO Associate Director, 2015 - 2020
Adam Pah is a Data, Computational Social, and Network Scientist. His main research efforts revolve around breaking down the barriers to systematically analyzing the legal system with the team at SCALES - OKN (Systematic Content Analysis of Litigation EventS Open Knowledge Network). SCALES goal is to build an AI powered data platform that makes the details of the federal judiciary and insights into how it works available and accessible to every single person.
Professor Motter's research is focused on the dynamical behavior of complex systems and complex networks. In particular, in recent work Motter and his collaborators have established conditions for the synchronization of power grids and other complex networks, have developed the concept of synthetic rescue in network biology, have designed the first class of metamaterials that exhibit longitudinal negative compressibility, have developed methods for the control the nonlinear dynamics of complex networks, including cascade failures in distributed systems, and have investigated implications of these methods for the recovery of lost function in biological, ecological, and physical networks.
Professor Horvat's research is at the intersection of computational social science and social computing. Her research group investigates the impact of network embeddedness and diversity on scholarly communication, identifies expressions of collective intelligence and opportunities for innovation in crowdsourcing communities, and develops tools to support creativity and predict success in culture industries.
Job Titles:
- Professor, Department of Anthropology / University of Tennessee
Alex Bentley is a Professor and the Head of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee. Professor Bentley's research involves interdisciplinary analysis of culture change, past and present. This involves two main methodologies, one in analysis of isotopes in archaeological skeletal material, and the other in computational social science.
Job Titles:
- Program Administrator / Kellogg School of Management
- Program Administrator at the Kellogg School of Management
Andy Marfia is a Program Administrator at the Kellogg School of Management. He manages NICO's branding, marketing, and communication strategies, including the Wednesdays@NICO seminar series, Data Science Nights, other NICO sponsored events, and the NICO Quarterly Newsflash. In addition, Andy is responsible for the NICO web site and social media accounts. Finally, Andy manages the finances for Brian Uzzi's lab within NICO, including post-award management.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Sociology / Director, Northwestern Network and Neighborhood Initiative
Professor Papachristos aims to understand how the connected nature of cities-how their citizens, neighborhoods, and institutions are tied to one another-affect what we feel, think, and do. His main research applies network science to the study of gun violence, police misconduct, illegal gun markets, Al Capone, street gangs, and urban neighborhoods.
Job Titles:
- Network Scientist, Director of the Center for Network Science
- Visiting Scholar, 2014 / Associate Professor, Central European University
Balazs Vedres is a network scientist, director of the Center for Network Science and associate professor at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, at Central European University.
Ben Nelson was a Data Science Scholar from 2017-2018 with appointments in the Center for Interdisciplinary and Exploratory Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO). He is currently a Senior Data Scientist at the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative.
Job Titles:
- Gordon and Llura Gund Family Professor of Entrepreneurship / Associate Dean for Innovation and Impact
Professor Jones' research focuses largely on innovation and creativity, with recent work investigating the role of teamwork in innovation and the relationship between age and invention.
Professor Rand examines the use of computational modeling techniques, such as agent-based modeling, machine learning, network analysis, natural language processing, and geographic information systems, to help understand and analyze complex systems, such as the diffusion of information, organizational learning, and economic markets.
Binglu Wang is a Ph.D. student in Management & Organizations (MORS) at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, with affiliations at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation (CSSI) and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO). Her research involves computational social science, technology & innovation, and social networks, with a focus on understanding how community collapses from large-scale datasets. She received her bachelor's degree in information management and information system from Peking University in 2019.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Instruction
- Professor
Professor Clark's research covers topics such as intonational meaning, the history of English syntax, the application of game theory to problems in several areas of linguistics, and theories of language evolution. Currently his primary areas of teaching and research interest are semantics and pragmatics.
Professor Uzzi's research uses social network science and computational methods to explain outstanding human achievement.
Job Titles:
- Director, Buffett Institute for Global Studies
- Professor
Professor Carruthers' research interests include: comparative sociology; economy and society; the sociology of law; and the sociology of organizations.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Statistics / Department of Statistics / Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Professor Spencer is a statistician whose interests span the disciplines of statistics and public policy with a special focus on the design and evaluation of large-scale statistical data programs.
Qing Jin is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kellogg School of Management and NICO, and also the NICO Associate Director starting in the spring of 2023. As Associate Director, Qing curates and hosts the Wednesdays@NICO seminar series. As a Postdoctoral Fellow, Qing works with Professor Brian Uzzi. His research brings together different approaches from natural science and social science and he invents novel computational tools to understand, model, and predict social patterns.
Job Titles:
- Software Engineer at Fision Technologies
- Visiting Scholar, 2014 / Software Engineer, Fision Technologies
Christian Schulz is a software engineer at Fision Technologies. He received his PhD from ETH Zürich in 2018 in Computer and Information Sciences.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Job Titles:
- Research Scientist
- Research Scientist, Meta
- Scientist and Data Scientist
Chris Skovron is a political scientist and data scientist working on public opinion and representation. He was a Data Science Scholar at Northwestern (joint appointment with IPR and NICO) from 2017-2019.
Chris Skovron was a Data Science Scholar from 2017-2019 with appointments in the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO). He is currently a Research Scientist at and a NICO external faculty member.
Professor Bina uses thermodynamic modeling of phase relations, under equilibrium and disequilibrium conditions, to investigate the seismology and geodynamics of Earth's mantle and subducting lithosphere. He also studies the composition and mineralogy of planetary mantles, investigating roles of thermal and compositional variations, elemental partitioning relations, redox reactions, material properties, and structural transitions.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, Data Science Institute ( IDS )
- Assistant Professor, Universidad Del Desarrollo, Chile / Postdoctoral Fellow
- Professor
Professor Candia's work stands on the intersection of (big) data analysis and human behavior theories applied to socio-economic systems. Recently, his work focuses on computational social science and network science, particularly on hate speech dynamics, learning analytics, cooperative learning, higher education decision making, collective memory, and experimental game theory.
Job Titles:
- Research Scientist, CHuepe Labs Inc
Cristian Huepe develops research in complex systems, nonequilibrium physical dynamics and quantitative social sciences. Current efforts focus on collective motion, active matter, complex networks, modular-hierarchical evolutionary structures, and opinion formation.
Job Titles:
- Chancellor, Vanderbilt University / NICO Co - Founder
Daniel Diermeier's teaching and research focus on formal political theory, political institutions, the interaction of business and politics, text analytics, behavioral models of politics, and crisis and reputation management. He has published four books and more than 100 research articles in academic journals, mostly in the fields of political science, economics and management, and in other areas ranging from linguistics, sociology and psychology to computer science, operations research and applied mathematics.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor, University of Michigan / Postdoctoral Fellow
Job Titles:
- Executive
- Portfolio Director
- Executive Portfolio Director for IDEO
Dean Malmgren is an Executive Portfolio Director for IDEO. He was previously a co-founder and data scientist at Datascope, a data science consulting firm in Chicago, which was acquired by IDEO in October 2017. Dean received a BS and BSE from the University of Michigan and a PhD from Northwestern University. Dean's work has been featured in places like Crain's, TIME, Wired, and US News & World Report.
Professor Schanzenbach studies policies aimed at improving the lives of children in poverty, including education, health, and income support policies. Her recent work has focused on tracing the impact of major public policies such as SNAP (formerly the Food Stamp Program) and early childhood education on children's long-term outcomes.
Job Titles:
- Professor at the Institute of Biology
Professor Brockmann is a theoretical physicist by training, and his research focuses on complex systems at the interface of physics, life sciences and social sciences. He is particularly interested the application of dynamicals systems theory, stochastic processes and network science to infectious disease dynamics and related contagion processes. He is known for his work on human mobility and its role on the global spread of infectious diseases.
Job Titles:
- Professor, University of Sydney
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Management & Organizations
As a researcher, Ned Smith deeply cared about how social networks form and the impact that biases have on individuals and society. His pioneering work showed that social networks, once thought to be based solely in social interactions, can have influential cognitive and psychological determinants. His insights inspired new research in a growing, cross-disciplinary area.
Job Titles:
- Program Assistant / McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Emily Rosman is the first point of contact for the center, providing assistance in all aspects of procedures and services. Among her duties, she manages NICO memberships, the NICO annual report, handles logistics for seminars and lectures including the Wednesdays@NICO seminar series, assists with center special events, and monitors the NICO mailbox and listserv.
Job Titles:
- Professor & Chair of Internet Use and Society / University of Zurich
Professor Hargittai's research focuses on the social and policy implications of digital media with a particular interest in how differences in people's Internet skills/digital literacy influence what they do online.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Computer Science, Department of Computer Science / McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Professor Bustamante is interested in large-scale, longitudinal experimental research on computer networks and distributed systems.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Complex Systems / Saïd Business School
Professor Reed-Tsochas' research addresses the dynamic properties of large-scale collaboration and manufacturing networks, common structural features in organisational and ecological networks, the impact of imitation mechanisms on the emergence of cooperation, the robustness of ecological networks, and the spread of innovations in online social networks. These individual projects are linked by broader theoretical concerns, including the need to develop a more dynamic conception of network robustness and resilience, and an interest in identifying generative mechanisms that give rise to generic structures of cooperation.
Job Titles:
- Director, Program on Data Analytics at Kellogg
Professor Zettelmeyer specializes in evaluating the effects of information technology and big data on firms. More generally, his work addresses how the information consumers have about firms and the information firms have about consumers affect firm behavior.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, University of Hong Kong / Postdoctoral Fellow
Professor Morson's work ranges over a variety of areas: literary theory (especially narrative); the history of ideas, both Russian and European; a variety of literary genres (especially satire, utopia, and the novel).
Job Titles:
- Department of Chemistry / Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Guy Amichay is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Engineering Sciences & Applied Mathematics department (ESAM) and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO), working with Professor Daniel Abrams. He is mostly interested in self-organization-how systems manage to become ordered with no obvious leader or conductor. His current work is on synchronization (coupled oscillators), focusing on different systems such as firefly swarms flashing in unison or groups of crabs waving their claws in sync. Other than that he is also working on science of science (on the formation of collaborations) and association football (soccer) collective movement analysis.
Guy Amichay is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Engineering Sciences & Applied Mathematics department (ESAM) and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO), working with Professor Daniel Abrams. He is mostly interested in self-organization-how systems manage to become ordered with no obvious leader or conductor. His current work is on synchronization (coupled oscillators), focusing on different systems such as firefly swarms flashing in unison or groups of crabs waving their claws in sync. Other than that he is also working on science of science (on the formation of collaborations) and association football (soccer) collective movement analysis.
Hao Peng is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kellogg School of Management and NICO, working with Professor Brian Uzzi. He is interested in computational social science, science of science, social networks, and complex systems. His research studies the mechanisms involved in the production and dissemination of science and innovation.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Professor
Professor Zhang's work advances the design of integrated socio-technical models that solve complex problems and advance human values at scale. His research bridges the fields of Human-Computer Interaction, Artificial Intelligence, Social & Crowd Computing, Learning Science, and Decision Science.
Job Titles:
- Product Director, Spotify
Job Titles:
- Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry and Cell and Molecular Biology
Job Titles:
- Professor of Engineering Science and Applied Mathematics / McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Professor Riecke's research interests include: Computational Neuroscience (dynamics of neuronal networks with heterogeneous connectivity; information processing by neuronal networks in the olfactory bulb, and adaptive neural networks) and Pattern Formation (spatially extended dynamical systems, bifurcation theory with symmetry, complex patterns, and spatio-temporal chaos).
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics / University of Illinois
Professor Michelson studies the dynamics of poverty and food security in low-income countries where market failures are a fact of life. One of her key subjects is the interaction of international development efforts with local and large-scale agribusiness. She investigates how small farmers respond to the expansion of international supply chains, the sourcing of agricultural products, and the buying and selling of agricultural inputs.
Sophie Qiu is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kellogg School of Management and NICO, working with Professor Brian Uzzi. Her research interests include: Developers' diversity and inclusion in open-source communities, social network analysis, natural language processing, and gender representation in mass medi.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Management & Organizations
- Professor
Professor Youn's research interests are in Innovation and technological change, urban scaling and dynamics, historical and computational linguistics, transportation network, and network theory.
Professor Szleifer's work is aimed at the fundamental understanding of the properties of complex molecular systems that encompass problems at the interface between medicine, biology, chemistry, physics and materials science.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Department of Physics and Astronomy / Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Professor Kovács is working on bridging the gap between structure and function in complex systems. His group is developing novel methodologies to predict the emerging structural and functional patterns in a broad spectrum of problems ranging from systems biology to quantum physics, in close collaboration with experimental groups.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor / Department of Medicine, University of Wisconsin
Dr. Kruser leads a health services and outcomes laboratory that studies healthcare delivery within the complex system and environment of the intensive care unit. Her cross-disciplinary approach applies multiple health services and systems engineering research methods to investigate the interactions between members of the healthcare team, patients, and families with a specific focus on improving high-stakes medical decisions and end-of-life care delivery.
Professor Gerardin's research focuses on mathematical modeling of malaria transmission and interventions to help guide global policy to reduce burden and eradicate malaria.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor, University of Vermont
Job Titles:
- Professor, Department of Sociology / Director, Knowledge Lab
Professor Evans research focuses on the collective system of thinking and knowing, ranging from the distribution of attention and intuition, the origin of ideas and shared habits of reasoning to processes of agreement (and dispute), accumulation of certainty (and doubt), and the texture-novelty, ambiguity, topology-of understanding.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Language Modelling
Professor Pierrehumbert's research uses machine learning methods to understand language systems both in individuals and in communities. She is especially interested in how systems of word formation can be learned from statistical properties of the input, deployed to analyse novel words, and adapted to different contexts.
Job Titles:
- Software Engineer, Hex Technologies
Jarett Spiro is a Lead Data Scientists at Humana. He is a researcher with experience analyzing large, semi-structured and unstructured databases. His research produced several insights, including: how to increase team performance, identify social network structures that foster innovation and creativity, and provide improved frameworks for organizations to make sense of their environment, increasing the organizations' effectiveness and efficiency. Before joining Humana he was an Assistant Professor at INSEAD.
Job Titles:
- Visiting Scholar, 2012 / Lead Data Scientist at Humana
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor, Human Development and Social Policy
Professor Colyvas' research interests include: organizations and entrepreneurship; institutions and networks; comparing public, private, and non-profit forms of organizing; university-industry interfaces; and public and private science.
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant Professor / Kellogg School of Management
Jian Gao is a Research Assistant Professor in the Center for Science of Science and Innovation (CSSI) and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO), working with Professor Dashun Wang. He obtained a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. His research interests lie in the science of science, computational socioeconomics, network science, and economic complexity. His recent work focuses on measuring the disparities in exposure to artificial intelligence (AI) technologies and estimating the benefits of AI in science and innovation.
Job Titles:
- Director, Buffett Institute for Global Studies
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior
- Professor
Professor Atwell studies how groups of individuals communicate and consume social information. Using simulations, large-group experiments, and natural language processing, Dr. Atwell analyzes how different dynamic social processes produce, distribute and aggregate the information necessary for large groups to create these essential shared understandings.
Jon Atwell was a Data Science Scholar from 2017-2019 with appointments in the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO). He is currently an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a NICO external faculty member.
Job Titles:
- SVP Director, Analytics at Starcom
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, University College London / Postdoctoral Fellow
Job Titles:
- Dean of the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science / Distinguished Robert R. McCormick Institute
Dean Ottino's experimental and theoretical work unveiled the connection between chaos and mixing of fluids and opened multiple connections.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, EM Lyon Business School
Job Titles:
- Department of Anthropology / Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
- Professor
Professor Amato is a biological anthropologist studying the gut microbiota in the broad context of host ecology and evolution. She is particularly interested in understanding how changes in the gut microbiota impact human nutrition and health in populations around the world, especially those with limited access to nutritional resources.
Job Titles:
- Professor of History, Milton H. Wilson Professor in the Humanities / Department of History / Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Professor Alder studies the history of science and is the founding director of the Science in Human Culture Program at Northwestern University.
Kevin Chao was a Data Science Scholar from 2017-2019 with appointments in the Center for Optimization and Statistical Learning and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO). He is currently a Data Scientist at Biofourmis.
Job Titles:
- Professor, Mechanical Engineering / McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Robotics, mechanics, planning, and control of robotic manipulation; self-organized systems, particularly decentralized control of mobile sensor networks; motion planning and control for underactuated dynamic systems; physical human/robot interaction, industrial applications.
Job Titles:
- Integrated Knowledge Professor
Professor Kording's research has one single focus, data that matters. Early research in the lab focused on computational neuroscience and in particular movement. But as the approaches matured, the focus has more been on discovering ways in which new data sources as well as emerging data analysis can enable awesome possibilities. The current focus is on Causality in Data science applications - how do we know how things work if we can not randomize?
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia. Postdoctoral Fellow
Job Titles:
- Professor of the Arts and Humanities
Leslie DeChurch's research investigates teamwork and leadership in organizations. Professor DeChurch leads the ATLAS Lab, which explores the dynamics through which teams form, and how these dynamics affect their performance as teams, and their ability to work as larger organizational systems (multiteam systems).
Job Titles:
- Professor of Information Systems at the Department of Data Science
- Visiting Scholar, 2019 - 2020 / Professor, Zhejiang University
Liqiang Huang is Professor of Information Systems at the Department of Data Science and Engineering Management, Zhejiang University. His main research focus include the digital commerce, human-computer interaction, and cloud computing.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Learning Sciences and Computer Science
Uri Wilensky is a mathematician, educator, learning technologist and computer scientist. He is involved in designing, deploying and researching learning technologies, especially for mathematics and science education. Much of his work of late has focused on the design of computer-based modeling and simulation languages, including networked collaborative simulations. He is very interested in the changing content of curriculum in the context of ubiquitous computation. A particular interest is in complexity and systems thinking.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering / Professor of Physics & Astronomy / Professor of Medicine
Professor Amaral conducts and directs research that provides insight into the emergence, evolution, and stability of complex social and biological systems. His research aims to address some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity, including the mitigation of errors in healthcare settings, the characterization of the conditions fostering innovation and creativity, or the growth limits imposed by sustainability.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Professor of Neurobiology ( by Courtesy ) McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Professor MacIver believes that the body's mechanical intelligence can be just as important, if not more important, than what's going on in your head. His primary scientific efforts are in understanding how animal mechanics and sensory abilities fit together, and he pursues that problem using approaches from neuroscience, animal behavior studies, robotics, mathematical modeling, and computer simulations. In engineering, he has pioneered the development of a new sensor inspired by the ability of certain fish to sense using a self-generated electric field, and highly maneuverable propulsion systems based on fish locomotion.
Job Titles:
- Director and Faculty Fellow, Institute for Policy Research
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor at Rotterdam School of Management
- Visiting Scholar, 2013 / Assistant Professor, Erasmus University
Professor Micheli is an Assistant Professor at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. Her research areas include: business model innovation, social networks, and knowledge sharing.
Job Titles:
- Department of Chemistry / Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
- Professor Emeritus
Professor Ratner's work focuses on the interplay between molecular structure and molecular properties. This includes such aspects as molecular electronics, molecular optoelectronics, molecular systems design and biomolecular behavior, as well quantum and classical methodologies for understanding and predicting molecular structure and response.
Job Titles:
- Professor, Department of Statistics / the University of Chicago
Professor Silber's research is broadly in the area of dynamical systems. She studies applications of bifurcation theory to 'tipping points' and to spontaneous pattern formation in physical systems. Currently she is especially interested in dynamical systems models related to Earth's climate and ecosystems. Her focus is on understanding the mathematical mechanisms behind qualitative changes in system behavior with changes in system parameters.
Job Titles:
- Professor & Chair / Department of Linguistics / Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Professor Goldrick is interested in the cognitive science of language. His research utilizes behavioral experiments as well as formal models to build theories of the cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying linguistic knowledge and processing in mono- and multi-lingual speakers.
Job Titles:
- Senior Program Coordinator / McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Matt Sperry is the Senior Program Coordinator for NICO and the primary administrator for the Metropolitan Chicago Data Science Corps (MCDC), providing assistance in organizational workflow, event planning, and financial support.
Job Titles:
- Data Scientist at Swiss Re
- Visiting Scholar, 2014 / Senior Business Analyst, Swiss Re
Matthias Leiss is a Data Scientist at Swiss Re. Previously, he was a Post Doctoral Fellow at ETH Zürich. His research focused on financial modeling, risk management, econometrics, and computational social science.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Center for Synthetic Biology
- Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering
The Jewett lab seeks to reconceptualize the way complex biological systems are engineered for compelling applications in medicine, materials, and energy.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, Columbia Business School
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant Professor / University of Chicago
Michael Schnabel applies methods and ideas from statistical physics and neuroscience to model collective decision-making and information processing in social systems. His current research topics include opinion formation, deliberative democracy, and cognitive models of decision-making.
Job Titles:
- Executive Design Director at IDEO
Mike Stringer is an Executive Design Director at IDEO. He was previously the co-founder and partner of Datascope Analytics, a Chicago data-driven consulting and design firm which was aquired by IDEO in October 2017. He often speaks about creatively using data at conferences and leads the Data Science Chicago group. Stringer received a BS in Engineering Physics from the University of Colorado and a PhD in Physics from Northwestern University.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, Medical Social Sciences
- Professor
Professor Birkett's research interests include: social and contextual drivers of health disparities; social marginalization; HIV; network analysis; methods for social and contextual data capture; and transdisciplinary collaborations.
Professor Driscoll is a soft condensed matter experimentalist, and her research lies at the junction between soft-matter physics and fluid dynamics. The Driscoll lab focuses on understanding how structure and patterns emerge in a driven system, and how to use this structure formation as a new way to probe nonequillibrium systems.
The Mrksich Group uses the tools of organic chemistry, materials science and biochemistry to develop new approaches to studying and controlling molecular function.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, NYU Abu Dhabi / Postdoctoral Fellow
Job Titles:
- Professor of Biomedical Engineering / Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Professor Hartmann's research Interests include: sensorimotor integration, robots as tools for studying neuroscience, sensory acquisition behaviors, and neuroethology
Moh Hosseinioun is a PhD Candidate at UIC and a Research Fellow at the Kellogg School of Management and NICO, working with Professor Hyejin Youn. His research concerns the economic impacts of technological change and innovation in two directions, with a particular focus on the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI): 1) how firms improve their performance by innovation, and 2) how technologies and human skills interact.
Job Titles:
- Director, Program on Data Analytics at Kellogg
NICO Alumni are fellows and graduate students who have moved on to academic professorships or are now working in industry. Please note, former Visiting Scholars and Data Science Scholars are listed on those pages respectively.
Job Titles:
- Research Staff Member, IBM / Research Assistant Professor, 2019 - 2022
Professor Lamberson's research uses mathematical and computational modeling to better understand complex social systems. He is especially interested in how ideas, technologies, and behaviors spread, and how the "wisdom of crowds" can be used to aggregate information.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering / McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Professor Freeman's research interests include: nonlinear control theory; robust control, optimal control; nonlinear system theory; and control and estimation for multi-agent systems.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology and Surgery
A primary goal of Professor Chisholm's work is to establish the approaches and benefits of genomics informed personalized medicine. This project uses Electronic Health Records linked biobank samples to study the genetics of disease susceptibility, therapeutic outcomes and pharmacogenomics. His group is also interested in genome informatics, particularly genome annotation and visualization technology
Job Titles:
- Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change / Professor of Sociology
Job Titles:
- Professor of Mechanical Engineering / Senior Associate Dean for Operations and Research
Professor Lueptow's research interests and expertise range from fundamental flow physics to water purification on manned spacecraft to planetary acoustics. His current research focuses on nonlinear systems and granular flow dynamics.
Job Titles:
- Bill and Gayle Cook Professor of Biology / Department of Molecular Biosciences / Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Job Titles:
- Professor, Computational Social Science / George Mason University
Professor Axtell works at the intersection of the computational, social, behavioral and economic sciences. His research group combines agent-based computing with micro-data to build large-scale models having high verisimilitude with the real-world. They have worked on a variety of policy issues, from housing to fisheries, behavioral aspects of retirement and science policy.
Job Titles:
- Research Professor, ICREA
Professor Guimera's research is devoted to the study of complex systems and, particularly, of the structure of complex networks and the interplay between network structure and dynamics. In recent years, his work has turned to the development of probabilistic models and Bayesian inference approaches to network and non-network problems, at the interface of probability theory, theoretical computer science, and statistical physics.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor, Molecular Biosciences
- Professor
Professor Braun is a computational biologist with an interest in the development of methods for integrative, systems-level analysis of high-dimensional ("big") *omic data. These methods incorporate bioinformatic information with experimental data to characterize the networks of interactions that lead to the emergence of complex phenotypes, particularly cancers.
Job Titles:
- Professor for Digital Innovation / Purdue University
- Social Scientist
Sabine Brunswicker is an internationally recognized scholar with a particular interest in open digital innovation, describing new ways of using information technologies to organize the collective design and use of innovative digital goods. She is a Professor for Digital Innovation, and the Founder and Director of the Research Center for Open Digital Innovation.
Sabine Brunswicker is a computational social scientist, bridging social science and computing, when studying open digital innovation. Examples of open digital innovation she is particularly interested in are: open source software communities, civic crowdsourcing, open data app competitions, collective software design and re-use, or collective energy conservation through interactive home-energy monitoring applications and visualizations. In her work, she designs and examines systems and technologies that support open digital innovation with respect to their technological and behavioral impact. She also uses computational techniques and behavioral analytics (e.g. advanced network analysis or agent-based modeling) to predict individual as well as collective outcomes in open digital innovation.
Job Titles:
- Founder & Chief Executive Officer / SBB Research Group
Sam Barnett, Ph.D., is an applied mathematician and neuroscientist specializing in financial markets, consumer decisions, content engagement, and other complex systems. He focuses on bridging academia and industry in his roles as the Chief Executive Officer of SBB Research Group. Dr. Barnett received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience at Northwestern University studying EEG-derived neural similarity.
Job Titles:
- Scientist in Residence, Lux Capital / Senior Fellow, Silicon Flatirons Center
Professor Arbesman is a complexity scientist, whose work focuses on the nature of scientific and technological change. His scientific research has been cited widely and Arbesman is the author of two award-winning books, Overcomplicated: Technology at the Limits of Comprehension (Current/Penguin, 2016) and The Half-Life of Facts (Current/Penguin, 2012).
Job Titles:
- Professor of Physiology / Feinberg School of Medicine
Professor Solla's research focuses on computational neuroscience, information processing, complex systems, neuronal code, and systems neuroscience.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor, Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida, India / Postdoctoral Fellow
Job Titles:
- Professor of Sociology at Purdue University
- Visiting Scholar, 2010 / Professor of Sociology, Purdue University
Scott Feld is Professor of Sociology at Purdue University. He has published over sixty articles, including twelve published in the most prestigious journals in the fields of Sociology and Political Science. His ongoing research interests involve: 1) Causes and consequences of patterns in social networks, 2) Processes of individual and collective decision making, and 3) Applications of sociology, most recently including innovations in marriage and divorce laws (covenant marriage).
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor, MIT / Postdoctoral Fellow
Job Titles:
- Professor of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences / McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Professor Iravani's research interests include the applications of stochastic processes and queuing theory in the design and control of manufacturing, service operations and health care systems and supply chains.
Professor Bouchat's research interests are in computational social science, at the intersection of political methodology and comparative politics. Their methodological work is motivated by the challenges of small-n and manipulated data in authoritarian regimes, and in particular is informed by substantive expertise in Myanmar and regional focus on Southeast Asia. Professor Bouchat utilizes text-as-data and Bayesian approaches to reconcile information from both qualitative and quantitative data.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Finance at the Driehaus College of Business
- Visiting Scholar, 2017 / Professor of Finance, DePaul University
Sonya Lim is a professor of finance at the Driehaus College of Business, DePaul University. Her research interests include behavioral finance, investments, household finance and analyst forecasts.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago ( UIC ) Research Assistant Professor
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor, Arizona State University / Postdoctoral Fellow
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Associate Professor, University of Miami
Research in Professor Wuchty's group largely revolves around the development and application of bioinfomatics and system biological algorithms that are applied on biological/biomedical problems. Furthermore, his group focuses on the computational analysis of large-scale biological datasets. As for social sciences, research focuses on the analysis and modeling of datasets from social media.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Ecology and Evolution / the University of Chicago
Professor Allesina is a theoretical ecologist studying mostly ecological networks. He is interested in the dynamics of large ecological communities, models for network structure, and the response of ecological communities to extinctions. His laboratory develops mathematical, computational and statistical tools for the analysis of ecological systems.
Job Titles:
- Professor, Department of Psychology / Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Professor Franconeri studies visual thinking and communication: how it works, and how we can make it work better. At his Visual Thinking Laboratory, a team of researchers explore how leveraging the visual system - the largest single system in your brain - can help people think, remember, and communicate more efficiently.
Job Titles:
- Postdoctoral Research Associate, MIT
Job Titles:
- Professor
- Professor, Earth and Planetary Sciences / Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Suzan van der Lee is a seismologist and a professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Northwestern University.
Job Titles:
- Research Professor / Department of Physics and Astronomy / Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Professor Nishikawa's background and research areas of interest are dynamical systems, complex networks, and the intersection between the two. The focus of his research is on the mathematical analysis of structural and dynamical properties of complex networks, and in particular the relationship between the network structure and collective dynamics, such as synchronization, in networks of oscillating units.
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant Professor / Kellogg School of Management
Tara Sowrirajan is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Kellogg School of Management and NICO, working with Professor Brian Uzzi. Tara works on modeling and understanding human behavior with large-scale behavioral datasets using AI, network theory, and machine learning.
Job Titles:
- Expert
- Provost, Michigan State University / Adjunct Professor, Feinberg School of Medicine
Teresa Woodruff is an internationally recognized expert in ovarian biology and, in 2006, coined the term "oncofertility" to describe the merging of two fields: oncology and fertility. Prior to leaving Northwestern in 2020 to become Provost at Michigan State University, she was Dean and Associate Provost for Graduate Education in The Graduate School.
Thomas Stoeger was a Data Science Scholar from 2017-2019 with appointments in the Center for Genetic Medicine and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO). He is currently a Post Doctoral Fellow in the Amaral Lab at Northwestern University.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering
Professor Murphey's research focuses on computational methods in dynamics and control. The group focuses on computational models of embedded control, biomechanical simulation, dynamic exploration, and hybrid control. Much of the work uses structured integration (numerical techniques specifically suited to mechanical systems) to ensure stability and robustness of the numerical technique.
Professor Van Mieghem's research focuses on product, service and supply chain operations, and studies both strategy and execution.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Center for Synthetic Biology
- Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Job Titles:
- Professor of Geological Sciences
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Computer Science at School of Computer Engineering
- Visiting Scholar, 2013 - 2015 / Associate Professor, Shanghai University
Wen Zhou is Associate Professor of Computer Science at School of Computer Engineering and Science at Shanghai University. Zhou's research has covered various subjects of computer science and management science including: data mining algorithms and applications, text mining, innovation, knowledge flow on inter-organization network, and social network analysis. Her work has examined several areas including Chinese automobile industry.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics / McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
Professor Kath's research interests include: computational neuroscience, action potential propagation and dendritic integration in neurons; predictive modeling of cancer and epigenetic networks; optical fibers and waveguides, polarization mode dispersion, importance sampling and rare event simulation in lightwave systems, optical solitons, parametric optical amplifiers, linear and nonlinear wave propagation; and nonlinear dynamics, asymptotic and singular perturbation methods.
Job Titles:
- Research Assistant Professor, Feinberg School of Medicine
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, Mendoza College of Business
- Assistant Professor, Syracuse University / Research Assistant Professor
Professor Yang's principal research interest lies in the areas of data mining/machine learning, computational social science and science of science. Yang is interested in studying how social networks affect individuals' success. Specifically, he has studied the link between social network and leadership attainment and how social network can help women to achieve placement in leadership. He also focuses on research in the context of science and innovation. He studies the effect of team composition on performance and innovation, as well as the role of media and social media in shaping public access to science.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, Peking University / Postdoctoral Fellow
Yian Yin is a Ph.D. candidate at the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University, with affiliations at the Center for Science of Science and Innovation (CSSI) and the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO). He studies computational social science, the science of science, and complex systems, with a particular interest in quantitative understanding of success and failure in human activities through interdisciplinary approaches.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, NYU Shanghai