Computational Social Science Workshop (7th and 8th December 2017)

Recent years have seen an explosion in the computational and mathematical study of social networks, cultural evolution, and population-level communication and change. Much of this work occurs in disparate fields, from computer science and mathematics to social psychology, cognitive science, biology, and ecology. Our common ground is a set of similar theoretical questions and common quantitative methodologies (although there are probably interesting differences even here!); we probably have less common ground when it comes to shared empirical and domain knowledge or shared vocabulary.

The goal of this workshop is to create conversations that build on and identify existing common ground, and build bridges across existing divides (or at least identify where bridges might be good to build!). To that end, participants will be giving 25-minute presentations (with five minutes of questions) that offer an overview of each person’s research within this topic, as well as their thoughts on some big-picture questions. What are the most interesting, surprising, or exciting findings? What are the biggest challenges, both for themselves and this field as a whole? What are the most interesting open questions? What kinds of collaborations and information sharing will be most scientifically beneficial?