Coevolution and Complexity

They’ve sure been keeping me busy here at Utrecht! I already started some preliminary work on my thesis. My project will be on the coevolution of behavior and social networks. Basically, I will be looking at what kinds of social structures emerge when people can choose whom to interact with in a competitive context. My project will involve an analytical prediction, possibly a computer simulation and a computerized laboratory experiment. Lots of exciting stuff and loads of challenging work ahead…

But first, this summer, I am going to the Santa Fe Institute (in New Mexico, USA) to participate in their Complex Systems Summer School. I feel greatly honored to have been selected for this program and thankful to my supervisor, Vincent Buskens, for his support. I also could not have made it without the name and reputation of Utrecht University. So what’s the big deal? The Santa Fe Institute is a non-profit research institution that was founded in 1984 by a bunch of brilliant minds working at the nearby Los Alamos National Laboratory (notorious for the Manhattan Project and the development of the first atomic bomb). Its goal is to develop and spread the study of complex systems – a revolutionary research approach to addressing problems in artificial intelligence, chemistry, computer science, economics, meteorology, molecular biology, neuroscience, physics, sociology… Thus, I am going to spend four weeks this summer studying complex systems with 50 other graduate students and scholars from all these disciplines and from all over the world. I am simply exhilarated! The knowledge and skills I will acquire will be a great contribution to my education here and particularly, my thesis project on the emergence of macro-level social phenomena from rational individual behavior.