Current Research Interests

His research focused on spatiotemporal pattern formation in two-dimensional systems. In particular, he investigated the effects of spatial heterogeneity on the formation and dynamics of spiral and target waves. It was here that Matthew was first introduced to the ideas of complexity and agent-based models.

Dr. Matthew Hendrey obtained his BS in physics from Georgia Tech. He continued his study of physics at the University of Maryland, College Park where he was a member of the Chaos & Nonlinear Dynamics research group. His research focused on spatiotemporal pattern formation in two-dimensional systems. In particular, he investigated the effects of spatial heterogeneity on the formation and dynamics of spiral and target waves. It was here that Matthew was first introduced to the ideas of complexity and agent-based models.

Upon graduation, Matthew worked at BiosGroup, Inc. where he developed agent-based models in a commercial setting. He developed a consumer behavior model for the IRS using demographic and survey data. The model explored the best marketing strategies that would increase the adoption of electronic filing of tax returns. He worked on a global financial markets model to study financial instability. Additional work included studying punctuated equilibrium in an iterated prisoner’s dilemma game and distributed control of shipboard power.

After a short foray into the world of short-term, automated stock trading, Matthew did data mining work at SRA International, Inc. He worked with IRS data to improve the audit selection process. He implemented a Random Forest model to investigate the variable importance in the severity of a disease using NIH clinical research trial data. He also analyzed Iraq battlefield data for patterns of activity.

Current Research Interests

His research focuses on modeling complex systems in the context of empirical data. His interests include the quantitative study of conflict dynamics, modeling adaptation to a changing climate, understanding the human and economic flows driving changes in the global urban system, and the development of novel urban metrics based on nighttime lights.

Teaching Interests

• PUAF 699K: Civil Conflict and Terrorism
• PUAF 698H: Complex Systems Perspectives on Public Policy

Dr. Timothy Gulden is a research assistant professor with the Center for Social Complexity in the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University and a research scholar with the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM).  He completed his PhD at the UMD School of Public Policy in December of 2004 with a dissertation entitled “Adaptive Agent Modeling in a Policy Context.”  He has been a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution”s Center for Social and Economic Dynamics (CSED) and attended the Santa Fe Institute”s Complex Systems Summer School in 2002.  From 1989 through 1999, he was the technical director of the GIS program for Westchester County, New York.

He served as a full-time research fellow at CISSM, from 2004 through 2008 where he worked on a wide variety of issues including the oversight of hazardous biological research, the security implications of various policies in response to climate change and the spatial and temporal dynamics of civil violence.  He is particularly interested in developing novel ways of analyzing micro-scale data from violent conflicts that derive quantitative conclusions while preserving the spatial and temporal richness of the data.  He remains closely associated with CISSM because it provides a natural home for such work.

At present, his primary position is with the Center for Social Complexity at GMU, where he works to apply agent-based modeling techniques to the development of deeper understanding of civil violence in East Africa. His research interests range from methodological issues in the development and validation of agent-based models, through the use of complex systems techniques and remote sensed data to understanding the role of urban agglomerations in the process of globalization.

View Dr. Gulden’s full curriculum vitae as of May 2010 here.

Selected Publications

1. “The Security Challenges of Climate Change: Who is at Risk and Why?” in Matthias Ruth and María E. Ibarrarán (eds), Distributional Impacts of Climate Change and Disasters: Concepts and Cases, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing 2009
2. “Global Metropolis: Assessing Economic Activity in Urban Centers Based on Nighttime Satellite Images” with Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander, Under revision for The Professional Geographer
3. Critique of IFHS Violent Death Estimates – Letter to the Editor, New England Journal of Medicine July 24, 2008
4. “The Rise of the Mega-region” with Charlotta Mellander and Richard Florida Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 2008, 1, 459–476
5. “New Light on Urban Growth in the U.S. and E.U.” with Selma Lewis, Gerrit Knaap, Casey Dawkins, and Chris Elvidge Presented to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, January 7, 2008 Under revision for Computers, Environment and Urban Systems
6. “Beyond Zipf: an Agent-Based Understanding of City Size Distributions” with Ross Hammond in preparation for submission to Environment and Planning B
7. “Violence in Iraq is Beyond our Control” with John Steinbruner, Op-Ed in The Baltimore Sun, Sept 10, 2007
8. “The Rise of the Megaregion” with Richard Florida and Charlotta Mellander Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society (accepted for publication)
9. “Adaptive Agent Modeling as a Tool for Trade and Development Theory” Presented at 11th International Conference on Computing in Economics and Finance Washington, DC June 23-25, 2005 Appeared as Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 paper #112.
10. “Integrating Environmental, Social and Economic Systems: A Dynamic Model of Tourism in Dominica” with Trista Patterson, Egor Kraev, and Kenneth Cousins Ecological Modeling, Volume 175, Issue 2, 1 July 2004, Pages 121-136
11. “The Normal, the Fat-Tailed, and the Contagious: Modeling Changes in Emerging Market Bond Spreads with Endogenous Liquidity” with Paul Masson and Shubha Chakravarty, in M. Dungey and D. Tambakis, eds., Identifying International Financial Contagion: Progress and Challenges, Oxford University, 2005.
12. “The Role of Regulation in Moderating the Impact of International Capital Flows on the Environment: A Dynamic Modeling Perspective” Invited paper presented October 23, 2002 at the New America Foundation, Washington, DC.
13. “Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Civil Violence in Guatemala, 1977-1986” Politics and the Life Sciences, March 2002, 21:1 [Originally appeared February 2002 as Brookings Institution CSED Working Paper No. 26]

Peer Reviewed Conference Papers and Presentations

1. “An Agent-Based Model of Land-Use Driven Conflict Among Pastoralists in the Mandera Region of East Africa” with G.C. Balan, J. K. Bassett, A. B. Hailegiorgis, W. G. Kennedy, and M. Rouleau, Association of American Geographers, Washington DC, April 2010
2. “An Agent Based Model of Climate Change and Conflict among Pastoralists in East Africa” with A.B. Hailegiorgis, W.G. Kennedy, G.C. Balan, and J.K. Bassett, accepted to IEMSS2010.
3. “An Agent-Based Model of Conflict in East Africa and the Effect of Watering Holes” with W.G. Kennedy, A.B. Hailegiorgis, M. Rouleau, J.K. Bassett, M. Coletti, and G.C. Balan, Proceedings of the 19th Conference on Behavior Representation in Modeling and Simulation, Charleston, SC, 21 – 24 March 2010, pp 274-281.
4. “Conflict in Complex Socio-Natural Systems: Using Agent-Based Modeling to Understand the Behavioral Roots of Social Unrest within the Mandera Triangle” with M. Rouleau, M. Coletti, J.K. Bassett, A.B. Hailegiorgis, and W.G. Kennedy Human Behavior-Computational Modeling and Interoperability Conference 2009. Oak Ridge, TN. 23-24 June 2009.

Current Research Interests

Design Cognition

Cognitive studies of designing: protocol studies of designing; cognitive studies of design education, role of drawings in designing more
Cognitive neuroscience of designing: the behaviour of the brain while designing more

Design Computing

Social behavior in design – Computational social science: situated cognition based agents to study interactions in individuals, teams and organizationsmore
Computational models of creative design: evolutionary systems; analogy; emergence; situated agents, computational social science more
Evolutionary systems in design: genetic engineering; style emergence, complex evolution more
Ontologies: the development of the Function-Structure-Behaviour ontology and its application to designing, to designed objects and to designing processes more
Situated design computing: computation founded on situated cognition concepts that allows the acquisition and re-use of experience more
Visual representation and reasoning: emergence in design; shape representation; qualitative representationsmore

Design Education

Cognitive studies of design education: protocol studies using novel ontologically-based coding scheme that produces quantitative, commensurable results independent of domain, task and participant education and background; projects study high school students, undergraduate students in multiple domains and professionals; projects include longitudinal and lateral studies

Research Funding

Recent research funding for design cognition, design computing and design education research has come from NSF (CMMI, CNS, EEC, IIS and SBE programs), DARPA and NASA

Dr. John Gero is a research professor in Computer Science and Architecture at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and a Research Professor at the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study and at the Department of Computational Social Science, George Mason University. Formerly he was Professor of Design Science and Co-Director of the Key Centre of Design Computing and Cognition, at the University of Sydney. He is the author or editor of 50 books and over 650 papers and book chapters in the fields of design science, design computing, artificial intelligence, computer-aided design, design cognition and cognitive science. He has been a Visiting Professor of Architecture, Civil Engineering, Cognitive Science, Computer Science, Design and Computation or Mechanical Engineering at MIT, UC-Berkeley, UCLA, Columbia and CMU in the USA, at Strathclyde and Loughborough in the UK, at INSA-Lyon and Provence in France and at EPFL-Lausanne in Switzerland. His former doctoral students are professors in the USA, UK, Australia, Finland, India, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore and Taiwan.

He has been the recipient of many excellence awards including the Harkness Fellowship, two Fulbright Fellowships, two SRC Fellowships and various named chairs. He is on the editorial boards of numerous journals related to design science, computer-aided design, artificial intelligence and knowledge engineering and is the chair of the international conference series Artificial Intelligence in Design, the conference series Design Computing and Cognition and the international conference series Computational and Cognitive Models of Creative Design.

Dr. Gero is also an international consultant in the fields of design research, design cognition, computer-aided design, artificial intelligence in design and technology policy.

Dr. Gero is the author, editor or co-editor of 50 books and over 650 published research papers and book chapters. View a full list of Dr. Gero’s publications and writings on his personal webpage, where they are sorted by year.

View a list of Dr. Gero’s previous and current conferences here on his personal webpage.

Current Research Interests

Dr. Geller is primarily interested in information elicitation in challenging circumstances and evidence-driven model design.

Dr. Armando Geller is a computational social scientist and co-founder of Scensei, a decision support and analytics enterprise. In addition to the CSS group, he is also affiliated with the School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. He sometimes lectures in computational social science and contemporary conflict.

Selected Publications

1. Armando Geller and Maciej M. Latek (2014) “Returning from Iran,” Forced Migration Review 46:25–27.
2. Maciej M. Latek, Seyed M. Mussavi Rizi and Armando Geller (2013) “Verification through Calibration: An Approach and a Case Study of a Model of Conflict in Syria,” in Proceedings of the 2013 Winter Simulation Conference, Washington D.C.
3. Armando Geller and Scott Moss (2013) “Modeling Power and Authority: An Emergentist View from Afghanistan,” In Bruce Edmonds and Ruth Meyer (eds.) Simulating Social Complexity. A Handbook. pp. 667–708.
4. Armando Geller, Maciej M. Łatek, Seyed M. Mussavi Rizi (2012) “Using social simulation for aid and development analytics during armed conflict: Experiences from Uruzgan,” Proceedings of the Third Brazilian Workshop on Social Simulation.
5. Maciej M. Łatek, Seyed M. Mussavi Rizi and Armando Geller (2012) “Using Participatory Elicitation to Identify Population Needs and Power Structures in Conflict Environments,” C. Laroque, J. Himmelspach, R. Pasupathy, O. Rose, and A. M. Uhrmacher (eds.), Proceedings of the 2012 Winter Simulation Conference.
6. Seyed M. Mussavi Rizi, Maciej M. Łatek and Armando Geller (2012) “Fusing remote sensing with sparse demographic data for synthetic population generation: an algorithm and application to rural Afghanistan,” International Journal of Geographical Information Science27(5):986–1004.
7. Shah Jamal Alam and Armando Geller (2012) “Networks in Agent-Based Social Simulation,”In Alison J. Heppenstall, Andrew T. Crooks, Linda M. See and Michael Batty (eds.) Agent-Based Models of Geographical Systems Berlin: Springer, pp. 199–216.
8. Shah Jamal Alam, Armando Geller and Seyed M. Mussavi Rizi (2012) “Afghanistan,” In George A. Barnett (ed.) Encyclopedia of Social Networks. London: Sage, pp. 9–11.
9. Armando Geller, Joseph F. Harrison and Matthew Revelle (2011) “Growing Social Structure: An Empirical Multiagent Excursion into Kinship in Rural North-West Frontier Province,” Structure and Dynamics: eJournal of Anthropological and Related Sciences 5(1).
10. Armando Geller (2011) “The use of complexity-based models in international relations: A technical overview and discussion of prospects and challenges,” Cambridge Review of International Affairs 24(1):63–80.
11. Armando Geller, Maciej M. Łatek and Seyed M. Mussavi Rizi (2011) “How Corruption Blunts Counternarcotic Policies in Afghanistan: A Multiagent Investigation,” In J. Salerno, S.J. Yang, D. Nau and S.-K. Chai (eds.) Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling and Prediction 2011 conference. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 6589. pp. 121–128.
12. Multi-Agent-Based Simulation XI (2011), Tibor Bosse, Armando Geller and Catholijn M. Jonker (eds.) International Workshop, Toronto, Canada, May 11, 2010
13. Shah Jamal Alam, Armando Geller, Ruth Meyer and Armando Geller (2010) “Modelling Contextualized Reasoning in Complex Societies with ‘Endorsements’,” Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 13(4).
14. Maciej M. Łatek, Seyed M. Mussavi Rizi and Armando Geller (2010) “Persistence in the Political Economy of Conflict: The Case of the Afghan Drug Industry,” AAAI Fall Symposium Series. pp. 86–92.
15. Armando Geller (2010) “The Political Economy of Normlessness in Afghanistan,” In Angela Schlenkhoff and Ceri Oeppen (eds.) Beyond the “Wild Tribes”—Understanding Modern Afghanistan and its Diaspora. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 57–70.
16. Frédéric Amblard, Armando Geller, Martin Neumann, Armano Srbljinović and Nanda Wijermans (2010) “Analyzing Social Conflict via Computational Social Simulation: A Review of Approaches,” In Katalin Martinás, Dario Matika and Armano Srbljinović (eds.) Complex Societal Dynamics — Security Challenges and Opportunities. Amsterdam: IOS Press. pp. 126–141.
17. Armando Geller and Shah Jamal Alam (2010) “A Socio-Political and -Cultural Model of the War in Afghanistan,” International Studies Review 12(1):8–30.
18. Armando Geller and Bob Spencer (2009) “Mobilizing Traditional Afghan Skills and Perceptions to Increase Rural Development and Security,” Turkish Policy Quarterly 8(2):77–86.
19. Armando Geller and Scott Moss (2007) “Growing Qawm: An Evidence-Driven Declarative Model of Afghan Power Structures,” Advances in Complex Systems 11(2):321–335.
20. Armando Geller, Bogdan Werth and Ruth Meyer (2007) “He endorses Me—He Endorses Me Not—He Endorses Me… Contextualized Reasoning in Complex Systems,” AAAI Fall Symposium Series. pp. 108–115.
21. Armando Geller (2007) Macht, Ressourcen und Gewalt: Zur Komplexität zeitgenössischer Konflikte. Eine agenten-basierte Modellierung. Zürich: vdf.
22. Albert A. Stahel and Armando Geller (2006) “Die Gewaltherrschaft der Taliban,” InAfghanistan: Wegweiser zur Geschichte. Ed. by Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt (MGFA). Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, pp. 74–80.
23. Albert A. Stahel and Armando Geller (2006) “Die militärische Globalisierung und die ‘Verdammten dieser Erde’. Oder: Der Versuch einer Neuordnung der Welt durch die USA nach dem 11. September,” In Neue Weltordnung? Neue Ungewissheiten! Zürich: Chronos, pp. 101–126.
24. Albert A. Stahel and Armando Geller “Asymmetrischer Krieg: Theorie – Fallbeispiele – Simulation,” In Josef Schröfl and Thomas Pankratz (eds.), Asymmetrische Kriegführung – ein neues Phänomen der Internationalen Politik? Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, pp. 95–116.

View a list of Dr. Gero’s previous and current conferences here on his personal webpage.