people > associated faculty

Associated Complex Systems Faculty

Those faculty members whose research includes complex systems.

Arun Agrawal
(SNRE)

Mel Barclay
(Obstetrics & Gynecology)

Jenna Bednar
(Political Science)

Dennis S. Bernstein
(Aerospace Engineering)

Ravi Bhavnani
(MSU)

Bill Birmingham
(Electrical Engineering & Computer Science)

Anthony Bloch
(Mathematics)

James Breck
(Natural Resources and Environment)

Michael Bretz
(Physics)

Art Burks
(Electrical Engineering & Computer Science)

Yan Chen
(Economics)

Jason Daida
(Space Physics Research Lab)

Edmund Durfee
(EECS)

Nicholas Ellis
(Psychology & English Language Institute)

Christine A. Erdmann
(Epidemiology)

Diane Larsen-Freeman
(Education & English Language Institute)

George Furnas
(Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; School of Information)

Geoffrey Gerstner
(Biologic and Materials Sciences, School of Dentistry; Psychology)

Sharon Glotzer
(Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, Physics;
Macromolecular Science and Engineering, and Applied Physics)

Michael Gordon
(Business Administration)

John E. Jackson
(Political Science)

Trachette Jackson
(Mathematics)

Gordon Kane
(Physics)

Miles Kimball
(Economics)

John E. Laird
(Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)

Jay Lemke
(Education)

Robert Lindsay
(Psychology)

Jeff Mackie-Mason
(Economics; School of Information; School of Public Policy)

Mark Mizruchi
(Professor of Sociology)

Patrick Nelson
(Mathematics)

Randolph Nesse
(Psychiatry)

Brad Orr
(Physics)

Emre Ozdenoren
(Economics)

Kalyan Raman
(Marketing)

Paul Resnick
(Information)

Teresa Satterfield
(Linguistics and Romance Languages)

Larry Seiford
(Industrial Operations Engineering)

Charles Sing
(Human Genetics)

Quentin F. Stout
(Computer Science and Engineering)

Dennis S. Bernstein

Professor of Aerospace Engineering
Research interests: Linear, nonlinear, and adaptive control systems; linear and nonlinear identification; compartmental modeling and kinetics; experimental implementation of feedback algorithms for electromechanical systems with application to control of noise and vibration, aircraft, and spacecraft.
CSCS-related teaching: EECS 580/AE 565 Linear Control Systems, AE 563 Optimal Control Systems
Phone: 764-3719.
e-mail: dsbaero@umich.edu

Anthony Bloch

Professor of Mathematics
Research interests: Dynamics, Nonlinear Control Systems, Hamiltonian Systems.
CSCS-related teaching: Math 558: Ordinary Differential Equations, Math 658: Mechanics and Control
Phone: 647-4980
e-mail: abloch@umich.edu
Home page: www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~abloch/

James Breck

Institute for Fisheries Research, and Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Natural Resources and Environment
Research interests: Modeling fish communities in lakes with individual-based models; predator-prey interactions, contrasting fish-eating and plankton-eating fish; allocation and use of energy in fish during growth and starvation.
CSCS-related teaching: NRE 425 Applied Population Ecology. Major concepts and models used in understanding the structure and abundance of animal and plant populations in space and time.
Phone: 663-3554
e-mail: breckj@state.mi.us or breck@umich.edu
Home page: www-personal.umich.edu/~breck/

Michael Bretz

Professor of Physics
Research interests: Experimental adsorption physics at low temperatures, fullerene and carbon nanotubule characterizations, and avalanche dynamics in granular materials. The study of polymer bead chain aggregates to better understand chain locking, surface roughening and buckling at the onset of 2D avalanche motion.
Phone: (734)-764-4494
e-mail: mbretz@umich.edu
Homepage: www-personal.umich.edu/~mbretz/

Jason Daida

Assistant Research Scientist, Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences; Space Physics Research Laboratory; Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Research interests:My research group is U-M ACERS, Adaptive Computation in Environmental and Remote Sensing Sciences. Our charter is 1) to develop flexible and robust computational methods to extract information from environmental and remotely-sensed data; 2) to conduct basic research in adaptive computation that can be used in service to environmental and remote sensing sciences; 3) to nurture and develop interdisciplinary research skills for each participating student.
CSCS-related teaching: E195, UC280, AOSS 499, AOSS 701.
Phone: 647-4581
e-mail: daida@eecs.umich.edu
Home page: http://www.personal.engin.umich.edu/~daida/

Edmund H. Durfee

Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)
Associate Professor of Information, Director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Research interests: The understanding and design of practical protocols and representations that lead to effective patterns of emergent behavior in multi-agent systems, with applications in areas such as electronic commerce, digital libraries, and cooperative robotics.
CSCS-related teaching: EECS 592 (Advanced Artificial Intelligence), EECS 543 (Knowledge-based Systems), EECS 492 (Introductory Artificial Intelligence)
Phone: 936-1563
e-mail: durfee@umich.edu
Home page: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/durfee

Christine A. Erdmann

Assistant Professor of Epidemiology
Research interests: Modeling of both biologic and social processes underlying cancer incidence and mortality temporal and geospatial patterns. Evaluating the impact of cancer risk factors and interventions.
Phone: (734) 647-8438
e-mail: chrise@umich.edu
Home page: http://www.sph.umich.edu/iscr/faculty/profile.cfm?uniqname=chrise

Geoffrey Gerstner

Associate Professor, Department of Biologic and Materials Sciences, School of Dentistry, Department of Psychology.
Research interests: (1) Mammalian behavior sequences, empirical models of pattern formation. (2) Automated behavior-pattern recognition hardware and software. (3) Physiological bases of rhythmicity and intermittency in mammalian behavior.
Phone: (734)-763-7717.
Email: geger@umich.edu

Sharon Glotzer

Professor of Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Physics;
Professor of Macromolecular Science and Engineering, and Applied Physics
Research interests: Computational nanoscience, soft matter, complex systems, self-assembly, polymers, liquid crystals, colloids, surfactants, molecular nanostructures. Patchy particles. Molecular, mesoscale, and multiscale modeling and simulation. Agent-based models and genetic algorithms applied to nanoscale systems. Phase transitions, jamming and the glass transition, dynamics of supercooled liquids, nucleation and growth, quasicrystals, virus assembly and biomimetics. Materials informatics.
CSCS-related teaching: ChE/MSE 557 Computational Nanoscience of Soft Matter, ChE 538 Statistical and Irreversible Thermodynamics.
Phone: 615-6296
e-mail: sglotzer@umich.edu
Home page: http://www.engin.umich.edu/dept/che/research/glotzer/

Trachette L. Jackson

Associate Professor of Mathematics
Research interests: The application of ordinary and partial differential equations, epsecially to modeling the genesis, progression and treatment of cancer. Current research topics include, multiphase models of tumor encapsulation, modeling the apoptotic cascade in neuroblastoma cells, and comparing traditional, one-step, and two-step targeting strategies for cancer chemotherapy.
CSCS-related teaching: Math 463 (Introduction to Mathematical Biology), Math 559 (Topics in Applied Mathematics--Advanced Mathematical Methods for the Biological Sciences)
Phone: 764-8537
e-mail: tjacks@math.lsa.umich.edu
Home page: http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~tjacks

John E. Laird

Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)
Research interests: The architecture underlying natural and artificial intelligence systems with application to simulations, robotics, and computer games.
CSCS-related teaching: EECS 592 (Advanced Artificial Intelligence), EECS 543 (Knowledge-based Systems), EECS 492 (Introductory Artificial Intelligence)
Phone: 647-1761
e-mail: laird@umich.edu
Home page: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/laird

Jay L. Lemke

Professor in the School of Education, Department of Educational Studies, at the University of Michigan and Co-Editor of the journal Critical Discourse Studies.
Research interests:Research interests include science education, new learning technologies, multimedia semiotics, discourse analysis, and applications of complex systems theory to the study of social, cultural, and institutional change.
Phone: 734-763-9276
e-mail: jaylemke@umich.edu
Home page: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jaylemke/

Patrick Nelson

Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Research interests: Currently, my research can be divided into two areas. The first is Applied Mathematics, specifically the analysis of mathematical models which are applied to biology and medicine. The second is Mathematical Biology, specifically the development of models and their application to the medical field.
CSCS-related teaching: Math 462 (mathematical modeling), Math 450 (Advanced mathematical methods for engineers), Math 404 (Applied differential equations)
Phone: 763-3408
e-mail: pwn@math.lsa.umich.edu
Home page: http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~pwn

Randolplh Nesse

Professor of Psychiatry; Director, Institute for Social Research Evolution and Human Adaptation Program
Research interests: How natural or artificial adaptive systems are shaped by selection to be vulnerable to failure. More specifically, Darwinian medicine and the evolutionary origins of maladaptations, especially depression and the exigencies of the moral passions.
Phone: 764-6593
e-mail: nesse@umich.edu
Homepage: www-personal.umich.edu/~nesse/

Brad Orr

Professor of Physics
Research interests: Applications of atomic scale imaging to surface growth dynamics. One of the most complicated processes to understand in condensed matter physics is the growth of thin films from the vapor phase. We have developed a novel application of the scanning tunneling microscope to investigate the formation of such films. In combination with experiment we use kinetic Monte Carlo simulations to model the surface evolution in order to determine the most relevant physical processes during growth.
Phone: 936-3609
e-mail: orr@umich.edu

Emre Ozdenoren

Assistant Professor of Economics
Research interests: Microeconomic theory, decision theory, contract theory and game theory. Currently he works on (1) dynamic models of decision making in the presence of uncertainty or ambiguity; (2) modeling choice behavior in a complex environment; (3) auction and bargaining models where the players are possibly uncertainty averse.
Phone: 647-5606
e-mail: emreo@umich.edu
Homepage: www-personal.umich.edu/~emreo/

Eric Rabkin

Professor of English
CSCS Teaching: English 499 Directed Study: The Genre Evolution Project. This is collaborative work in the Genre Evolution Project, an attempt to test the hypothesis that cultural materials in context, just like biological organisms in ecosystems, evolve as complex adaptive systems. Our test materials are the American science fiction short story of the 20th century. More information can be found at the project website: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~esrabkin/ge/index.html
Phone: 764-2553
e-mail: esrabkin@umich.edu
Home page: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~esrabkin

Kalyan Raman

Professor of Marketing
Research interests: Applications of stochastic optimal control to business problems; Dynamic optimization of the firm's marketing program under uncertainty; Markov models in marketing; Brownian Motion models in marketing and finance; Game-Theoretic models in marketing and consumer behavior; Dynamically optimal advertising and pricing under uncertainty; Integrated Marketing Communications; Supply Chain Management; Diffusion models; Bayesian decision making; Optimal Stopping rules.
Phone: (810) 762-3289
e-mail: kalyanr@umich.edu

Paul Resnick

Associate Professor, School of Information
Research interests: analysis and design of distributed reputation systems that attempt to govern behavior among strangers in on-line environments such as eBay and other auction services.
CSCS-related teaching: SI504: Understanding Networked Computing
Phone: 647-9458
e-mail: presnick@umich.edu
Home page: http://www.si.umich.edu/~presnick

Teresa Satterfield

Associate Professor of Linguistics and Romance Languages
Research Interests: A book on a GA-based model of bilingual language acquisition (published by Kluwer in 1999). Current collaboration with Matthew Murphy on a SWARM agent-based model along the lines of Epstein & Axtell (1996) which can reconstruct/grow in silico a plausible complex language contact scenario such as those which occurred in colonial plantation situations with European slave owners and multiple groups of African slaves. This modeling technique leads to more explicit insights than any previous historical and linguistic studies into the processes by which certain languages (Creoles) evolved.
CSCS-related teaching: LINGUISTICS 44O: Language Learnability. This course examines learnability, the goal of explaining and modeling how languages are learnable in the abstract as based on linguistic theory constructs and language acquisition theory. A number of computational and CS components such as search and optimization techniques, genetic programming, and neural networks are discussed in this course.
Phone: 647-2158
e-mail: tsatter@umich.edu
Home page: http://www.umich.edu/~tsatter

Larry Seiford

Professor and Chair of Industrial and Operations Engineering
Research interests: quality engineering, productivity analysis, process improvement, distributed-systems design issues, and performance measurement. My current research involves the development of benchmarking models (Data Envelopment Analysis) for identifying best-practice in manufacturing and service including the financial services sector and health care delivery systems.
Phone: (734) 764-9422
email: seiford@umich.edu

Charles Sing

Professor of Human Genetics
Research interests: to define the role of genetic variation in determining variation in health in the human population at large. A critical assumption is that the individual is the fundamental unit of organization of interacting agents from which measures of health and responses to environments emerge as a dynamic property during the life cycle. The genome encompasses only one of many classes of agents involved in the functioning of the complex adaptive system represented by the individual. These agents participate in an autopoietic, self-organizing, dissipative, and cognitive network represented by the dynamic pattern of the set of relations among metabolic processes that produce many of the agents. The network is organized hierarchically and heterarchically into fields of agents defined by domains of relational order in which the state of any agent at a particular time is a function of the states of neighboring agents.
e-mail: csing@umich.edu
Home page: http://www.med.umich.edu/hg/singweb.htm

Quentin F. Stout

Professor of Computer Schience and Engineering
Professor of Oceanic, and Space Sciences
Research Interests: Parallelism: models, algorithms, and use in large scientific calculations. Parallel models include cellular automata and related more powerful models, where large grids of simple processors, each with only a small fraction of the data, cooperate to solve complex problems. I'm also interested in adaptive sampling and learning, and general algorithms.
e-mail:qstout@eecs.umich.edu
Home page:http://www.eecs.umich.edu/~qstout

Jun Zhang

Associate Professor of Psychology
Research interests: the general area of neural computation and mathematical psychology, broadly defined to include theories of neural network, machine learning (e.g., reinforcement learning), dynamical analysis of nervous system (single neuron activity and event-related potential), computational vision, choice- reaction time model, Bayesian decision theory and game theory.
CSCS-related teaching: Psych 643 (cross-listed with EECS) "Theory of Neural Computation"; Psych 808 "Advances in Reinforcement Learning"; Psych 721 "Mathematical Psychology"
Phone: 763-6161
e-mail: junz@umich.edu

Updated September 1, 2005