people > primary faculty

Primary Complex Systems Faculty

These are faculty at UM who do complex systems research, teach a complex systems course and/or help administer the Center.

Lada Adamic
(School of Information)

Jim Allen
(Physics)

Robert Axelrod
(Political Science and Public Policy)

Daniel Brown
(Natural Resources and Environment)

Elizabeth Bruch
(Sociology)

Michael D. Cohen
(Information, Public Policy, and Political Science)

Robert Deegan
(Complex Systems/Physics)

Gerry Davis
(Organizational Behavior, Business School)

Charles Doering
(Mathematics, Physics, Complex Systems)

Joseph Eisenberg
(Epidemiology)

Betsy Foxman
(School of Public Health)

Tom Gladwin
(Business and NRE)

Phil Hanlon
(Mathematics)

John H. Holland
(Psychology, and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)

George Kaplan
(School of Public Health, Epidemiology)

Aaron King
(Ecology & Environmental Biology and Mathematics)

Denise Kirschner
(Microbiology and Immunology)

Ken Kollman
(Political Science)

James Koopman
(Epidemiology, School of Public Health)

Bobbi Low
(Natural Resources and the Environment)

N. Harris McClamroch
(Aerospace Engineering, and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)

Scott Moore
(School of Business)

Franco Nori
(Physics)

Mark Newman
(Physics)

Scott E. Page
(Political Science)

Mercedes Pascual
(Biology)
Eric Rabkin
(English)

Robert Reynolds
(Adjunct Associate Research Scientist, LS&A Museum of Anthropology and Computer Science at Wayne State University)

Rick L. Riolo
(Center for the Study of Complex Systems)

Leonard M. Sander
(Physics)

Robert Savit
(Physics)

Satinder Singh
(EECS)

Carl P. Simon
(Mathematics, Economics, and Public Policy)

John Vandermeer
(Biology Department)

Michael Wellman
(Electrical Engineering and Computer Science)

Henry Wright
(Anthropology)

Lada Adamic

Assistant Professor, School of Information
Research interests: My research interests center on information dynamics in networks: how information diffuses, how it can be found, and how it influences the evolution of a network's structure.
CSCS Teaching: SI 614: Networks: Theory and Application
Phone:615-2132
e-mail: ladamic@umich.edu
Home page: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~ladamic/
Networks Seminar - a Rackham weekly interdisciplinary seminar/workshop on networks research.

Jim Allen

Joachin M. Luttinger Collegiate Professor of Physics

Research interests: My research is directed broadly at quantum emergence in solids, especially new quantum states of matter. I use various spectroscopies to measure the spectral weights of single-particle or two-particle electron response functions, which can then be related through various quantum many body theories to emergent properties like magnetism, superconductivity, the Kondo effect, quantum criticality and Luttinger liquid physics.
CSCS-related Teaching: Physics 288/489, Physics of Music, presents a holistic look at the relation between physics and music, and the interplay of reductionist and emergence concepts in the sciences of musical instruments, auditorium acoustics, devices for sound recording and reproduction, and of the human voice, human hearing, and human perception of sound.
Phone: 734-763-1150
e-mail: jwallen@umich.edu
Home page: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/physics/peopleprofile/0,2708,,00.html?ID=9

Robert Axelrod

Arthur W. Bromage Distinguished University Professor of Political Science and Professor of Public Policy
Research interests: Current research interests include (1) how complexity research can illuminate problems of organizational design and strategy, (2) how the structure of social networks affects the ability of populations to establish and maintain cooperation, (3) how different rules for updating strategy, based on one own's and others' experience, affect the efficiency of individual and social adaptation, and (4) how to encourage others to take responsibility for their behavior (including children, adults, business corporation, and nations).
CSCS Teaching: PoliSci 793: Complexity Theory in Social Sciences
Phone: 763-0099
e-mail: axe@umich.edu
Home page: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~axe/
The CAR project page: www.cscs.umich.edu/research/carReports.html, research on the effects of social networks and strategy-updating methods, with Michael Cohen and Rick Riolo.

Daniel Brown

Professor of Natural Resources and Environment
Research interests: Fundamental and applied aspects of geographic information science and remote sensing. Application primarily involves analysis and modeling of vegetation patterns and land use and land cover change.
Phone: 763-5803
e-mail: danbrown@umich.edu
Home page: www.umich.edu/~danbrown/

Elizabeth Bruch

Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research Assistant Professor of Sociology and Complex Systems (effective 2008).
Research interests: Residential mobility and neighborhood change, relationship between individual-level behavior and population dynamics, ethnic and economic inequality, and the statistical evaluation of complex computer models.
Phone: 734/936-1297
e-mail: ebruch at umich.edu
Home page: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~ebruch/

Michael D. Cohen

William D. Hamilton Collegiate Professor of Complex Systems, Information, and Public Policy
Research interests: organizational learning and routine, complex adaptive systems models, applications of information technology in small nonprofit organizations.
CSCS-related teaching: SI 702, ICOS (Organization Studies Research) Seminar
Phone: 647-8027
e-mail: mdc@umich.edu
Home page: http://www.crew.umich.edu/~mdc

The CAR project page: www.cscs.umich.edu/research/carReports.html, research on the effects of social networks and strategy-updating methods, with Robert Axelrod and Rick Riolo.

Gerry Davis

Professor of Organizational Behavior, Business School
Research interests: Study of contagion through networks in the evolution and spread of corporate governance institutions. Examples include the spread of takeover defenses among corporate boards through shared directors; chain migration of listed firms from Nasdaq to the New York Stock Exchange; geographical diffusion of stock exchanges among emerging markets; and information cascades in which firms financial analysts choose to follow. Evolution and structure of the social networks connecting corporate elites.
Phone: 647-4737
e-mail: gfdavis@umich.edu

Robert Deegan

Asst. Prof. of Physics and Complex Systems Studies.
Research interests: I am experimentalist interested in dynamical phase transitions in systems driven from equilibrium. My research covers a broad range of phenomena from drying drops to bursting balloons to vibrated slurries. Currently, I am working on drop impact and the instability that produces the famous Edgerton crown, the ability of vibrated drops to climb vertical surfaces, the mechanics of seed catapulting plants, and hysteresis in fluids.
Phone:615 5730
Home page: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rddeegan/
e-mail: ddeegan at umich.edu

Charles R. Doering

Professor of Mathematics, Physics, and Complex Systems;
Guest Investigator, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Research interests: Mathematical modeling and analysis in nonlinear dynamics, fluid mechanics, turbulence, statistical physics, with interdisciplinary applications in biology, chemistry and the engineering sciences.
Phone:936-2913
Home page: http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/people/facultyDetail.php?uniqname=doering
e-mail: doering at umich.edu

Joseph Eisenburg

Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, University of Michigan
Research interests: Dr. Eisenberg studies infectious disease epidemiology with a focus on waterborne and vectorborne diseases. His broad research interests integrates theoretical work in developing disease transmission models and empirical work in designing and conducting epidemiology studies. Specifically he has been interested in the environmental determinants of infectious diseases, and currently has a project in Ecuador studying how changes in the social and natural environment, mediated by road construction, affect the epidemiology of pathogens causing diarrheal diseases. Dr. Eisenberg also has an ongoing collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene group exploring how to integrate disease transmission models and multi-country survey data, to help inform regional and national decisions on public health policy making. Dr. Eisenberg's domestic interest has been focused on the development of a new microbial risk assessment framework that shifts the traditional approach of individual-based static models to population-based dynamic models. In coordination with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), this work has led him to apply these disease transmission models to assess the public health risk from exposures to microbial agents in drinking waters, recreational waters, and biosolids..
Phone: 734-615-1625
e-mail: jnse@umich.edu

Thomas Gladwin

Max McGraw Professor of Sustainable Enterprise; Professor of Strategy, Professor of Natural Resources and Environment; Erb Institute Director
Research interests:Current and future research centers on establishing and promulgating a science of sustainable enterprise, a new transdisciplinary field addressing relationships among ecosystems, social systems, economic systems and organizational systems. Ongoing research topics include transformational leadership for sustainable development, standards and metrics of sustainable business, biomimetic design of industrial organizations, sustainable cognition and ecological design intelligence, socially and environmentally sustainable economic globalization, business impact on biodiversity, sustainable mobility, corporate responses to global climate change, and understanding human organizations as living systems.
Phone:(734) 647-4491
e-mail: tgladwin@umich.edu

John H. Holland

Professor of Psychology and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Research interests: From the jacket of John's latest book EMERGENCE: John Holland is a MacArthur Fellow, a Fellow of the World Economic Forum, and co-chairman of the Science Board of the Santa Fe Institute. He is known worldwide as the "�father of genetic algorithms" and is the author of HIDDEN ORDER: HOW ADAPTATION BUILDS COMPLEXITY.
CSCS teaching: EECS 594/Psych 541: Theory Of Adaptive Systems. This winter term: Honors 493: Complexity And Emergence
e-mail: jholland@umich.edu

Betsy Foxman

Professor of Epidemiology in the School of Public Health
Research interests:
CSCS teaching:
e-mail: bfoxman@sph.umich.edu
Homepage: http://www.sph.umich.edu/~bfoxman/

George Kaplan

Thomas Francis Collegiate Professor of Public Health
Director, Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health and RWJ Health and Society Scholars Program
Research Professor, Survey Research Center
Research interests: Social Epidemiology; links between social divides and health divides; health inequalities and disparities; impact of social and economic policies on health; multilevel studies that link social and biological factors; studies of cardiovascular disease and aging.
Phone:615-9209
e-mail: gkaplan at umich
Home page: http://www.sph.umich.edu/iscr/faculty/profile.cfm?uniqname=gkaplan

Aaron King

Assistant Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology and Mathematics
Research interests: My interest tend to be focused on the dynamics of ecological systems and of nonlinear, stochastic systems more generally. I have specific interest in: the role of seasonality in shaping population dynamics; the whooping cough; the causes of population cycles; laboratory microcosms as model systems; statistical methods for bringing nonlinear, stochasticsmodels into direct confrontation with time-series data; and dynamical approaches to phylogenetic comparitive analysis. More generally, I am deeply interested in the developement and analysis of new biological models for concrete systems.
e-mail: aaron.king@umich.edu
Homepage: http://www.umich.edu/~kingaa

Denise Kirschner

Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Medical School; Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering
Research interests: to understand the dynamic interactions between host and pathogen, and how perturbations to these interactions (via treatment with chemotherapies or immunotherapies) can lead to prolonged health or cure. Main interest is on persistent infections -- infections that the body is not able to clear, including bacteria, such as Helicobacter pylori and Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and viruses, such as HIV and Herpes. Current focus is on the role of the host response in pathogenesis. Main research tools are deterministic mathematical models, especially bifurcation theory, phase plane analysis, numerical simulations, uncertainty and sensitivity analyses.
CSCS-related courses: MICROBIOLOGY 510: Computational pathogenesis: modeling infectious diseases, includes an intro to nonlinear dynamical systems, in host models and epidemic models. BIOCHEMISTRY 526: Computational Genomics: Basic knowledge of the theory and design of databases, access to genomic information, sources of data, and tools for mining, identification of lower order and higher order patterns in DNA and approaches to linking genome data to information on gene function.
Phone: 647-7722
e-mail: kirschne@umich.edu
Home page: http://malthus.micro.med.umich.edu/~kirschne/

Ken Kollman

Professor of Political Science, and Senior Associate Research Scientist at the Institute for Social Research
Research Interests: Computational political economy, including the study of political competition and the emergence of political organizations, federated organizations and federal political systems, Tiebout models, policy experimentation, lobbying, the application of complexity models and other computational techniques to political science.
Phone: 936-0062
e-mail: kkollman@umich.edu

James Koopman

Professor of Epidemiology, School of Public Health
Research Interests: Complex disease causing systems with a special focus on infectious agent transmission systems. Understanding the complex systems that transmit infection and how to best control the spread of infection in those systems requires multiple levels of related models that focus on different aspects of transmission systems. Specific areas of application are the design of STD and HIV surveillance systems, the evaluation of waterborne infection control strategies, the design of vaccines and vaccine trials, and the use of DNA sequence patterns of infectious agents to describe transmission system behavior.
CSCS teaching: Epidemiology 802: Computer Simulation of Epidemiological Processes
Phone: 763-5629
e-mail: jkoopman@umich.edu
Home page: http://www.sph.umich.edu/~jkoopman/jkoopman.html

Bobbi Low

Professor of Resource Ecology, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Research interests: Evolution and ecology of family formation, sex differences, and group living; social networks; historical demography; human-ecosystem modeling.
CSCS-related teaching: SNRE 505, Human Resource Ecology: evolution of human resource ecology from traditional to modern societies with emphasis on sex differences and conservation implications
Phone: 763-4518
e-mail: bobbilow@umich.edu

N. Harris Mcclamroch

Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Research interests: Nonlinear dynamics, nonlinear control, optimization, and estimation. Applications to engineering problems, especially in the areas of atmospheric flight vehicles, space flight vehicles, robotics, manufacturing, and air traffic control.
Phone: 763-2355
e-mail: nhm@engin.umich.edu

Scott Moore

Associate Professor of Business Information Technology
e-mail: samoore@umich.edu
Homepage: http://www.samoore.com/index.php

Mark Newman

Associate Professor of Physics and Complex Systems
Research interests: Networks and graph theory; statistical physics including glassy systems, Monte Carlo methods, and percolation; epidemiology and the structure of contact networks; macroevolutionary theory, space diversity, and extinction.
Phone: forthcoming
e-mail: mejn at umich edu
Homepage: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/

Franco Nori

Professor of Physics
Research interests: Quantum information science, quantum computing. Complex spatio-temporal nonlinear dynamics in materials. Dynamical instabilities (avalanches, cascades, sandpiles). Specific examples include: vortex dynamics, superconductivity, transport phenomena (of electrons, phonons, vortices, grains, sandpiles) in systems that have disorder; quantum noise control in solids.
Phone: 764-3271
e-mail: nori at umich.edu
Home page: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nori

Scott E. Page

Professor of Political Science and Complex Systems; External Faculty Member of the Santa Fe Institute and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Complex Systems
Research Interests: Currently involved in projects on diversity in problem solving and in modeling problem difficulty and complexity. Particularly interested in the interplay between characteristics of the environment, i.e. difficulty and complexity, and the performance of economic and political institutions.
Phone: 319-335-1010
e-mail: spage@umich.edu
Home page: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~spage

Mercedes Pascual

Associate Professor, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Research interests: (1) Spatio-temporal dynamics in nonlinear ecological systems for antagonistic interactions (predator-prey, host-parasite, and disturbance-recovery); particularly questions on the relationship between dynamics at different spatial scales, and approaches to simplify high-dimensional models by parameterizing sub-grid scale processes. (2) The response of nonlinear ecological systems to environmental variability; the application of nonlinear time series analysis to identify key environmental drivers and to predict responses; (3) The dynamics of diseases related to aquatic environments.
Phone: 615-9808
e-mail: pascual@biology.lsa.umich.edu

Robert Reynolds

Adjunct Associate Research Scientist with the Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan; Associate Professor of Computer Science at Wayne State University
Research Interests: The development of computational models of cultural evolution. A framework, Cultural Algorithms, has been developed that can be used to model the development of hybrid evolutionary systems that contain both an evolutionary population and a knowledge base component. The population component can be any evolutionary population model including genetic algorithms or genetic programming. Use of these techniques to develop computational models of state formation based upon archaeological data from the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico.
CSCS-related teaching: At Wayne State, Reynolds teaches an artificial intelligence sequence and CSC 614, an introduction to genetic programming
Phone: (313)-577-0726
e-mail: reynolds@cs.wayne.edu

Rick L. Riolo

Research Scientist, Director of CSCS Computer Lab
Research interests: (1) how evolutionary algorithms work, e.g., when and how recombination is a useful evolutionary operator; (2) how interaction topology affects the ability of populations to establish and maintain cooperation and other group structures and behavior; (3) the use of evolutionary algorithms as part of general learning systems, e.g., Holland-type classifier systems; (4) how coordinated behavior emerges from populations of agents with co-evolving models of each other.
CSCS Teaching: CSCS 530, Introduction to Computer Modeling of Complex Systems; CSCS 501, Introduction to Complex Systems
Phone: 763-3323
e-mail: rlriolo@umich.edu
Homepage: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~rlr/
The CAR project page: www.cscs.umich.edu/research/carReports.html, research on the effects of social networks and strategy-updating methods, with Michael Cohen and Robert Axelrod.

Leonard M. Sander

Professor of Physics
Research interests: Pattern formation, specifically dendritic and fractal growth, dynamic fracture, river networks, and chemical waves.
CSCS Teaching: Physics 413/CSCS 541: Physics of Complexity
Phone: 764-4471
e-mail: LSANDER@umich.edu
Home page: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lsander

Robert Savit

Professor of Physics, Founding Director of the Program for the Study of Complex Systems
Research interests: Consequences and dynamics of adaptive competition in social and biological systems. Emergence and evolution of structure in populations. Nonlinear data analysis. Epilepsy and seizure prediction.
CSCS Teaching: CSCS 520: Empirical Analysis of Nonlinear Systems
Phone: 764-3426
e-mail: savit@umich.edu

Carl P. Simon

Professor of Mathematics, Economics, and Public Policy. Director, Center for the Study of Complex Systems
Research interests: Theory and application of dynamical systems, especially in modeling the epidemiology of HIV and influenza at the population and at the cellular level. Compartmental systems in biology and ecology. The evolution of viruses and bacteria, of HMOs, and of animal aggregation.
CSCS Teaching: CSCS 510/Math 550: Introduction to Adaptive Systems
Phone: 647-9194
e-mail: cpsimon@umich.edu

John Vandermeer

Professor, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Research interests: Dynamics of interacting ecological populations, including seasonal forcing of predator/prey systems and dynamics of multiple interactions in trophic webs. CSCS teaching: Biology 499: Nonlinear dynamics in ecological systems.
Phone: 764-1446
Email: jvander@umich.edu

Michael Wellman

Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Research interests: Artificial intelligence, multi-agent systems, computational markets, electronic commerce.
CSCS-related teaching: EECS 492: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
e-mail: wellman@umich.edu
Home page: http://ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/wellman/

Henry Wright

Professor of Anthropology; Curator of Near Eastern and African Civilizations, Museum of Anthropology
Research interests: The development of the first complex economic and political systems, with special focus on SW Asia and Madagascar; modeling the development of state polities from a context of competing pre-state systems; Late Glacial foragers, with special focus on the colonization of the Great Lakes region by hunter-gatherers, modeling the development of foraging systems.
CSCS-related teaching: Anthro 582: The Archaeology of the Early Civilizations; Anthro 692: The Origins of States
Phone: 764-0485 (Off), 936-2536 (Lab)
e-mail: hwright@umich.edu

Updated September 1, 2005