2014 Center For Advanced Modeling Graduate Workshop

BRINGING TOGETHER THE NEXT GENERATION OF COMPUTATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENTISTS
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY, BALTIMORE, MD, JULY 10-12, 2014

Over the last 20 years, agent-based modeling has progressed from an avant-garde invasion into the social sciences to a widespread methodology used to make contributions of remarkable interdisciplinary range. Young modelers can often find themselves on a methodological island within their departments, confronted by the institutional barriers limiting their interactions with the methodologically like-minded in other departments and disciplines. The Center for Advanced Modeling (CAM) Graduate Student Workshop is an opportunity for students to present work, at a variety of stages, to an audience of their intellectually and methodologically diverse peers, as well as senior faculty from a range of fields. The goal of the workshop in to create a setting in which students can present their work to faculty and other students, share ideas, and begin building the interdisciplinary network of colleagues and co-authors necessary for success.

To this end, we invite working papers, dissertation chapters, and recently published work that leverages agent/individual –based computational modeling from a variety of disciplines including, but not limited to:

  • Economics, Political Science, Sociology, Demography, and History
  • Ecology, Evolutionary Biology, Epidemiology, and Geography
  • Systems, Industrial, or Biomedical Engineering
  • Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, and Network Science

We will be limiting the scale of the workshop in order to allow for an informal and lively discussion of the papers and ideas. Participation will be free of charge, and lodging and meals will be provided for all participants, but participants will need to cover their own travel expenses. Presentation slots are for students only, but there will be lodging available for a handful of senior faculty as well. Potential participants are asked to send an extended abstract (500 -1000 words) or a full paper with a short abstract tocenterforadvancedmodeling@gmail.com before May 10, 2014. Notifications about paper acceptance will be sent out before May 15, 2014.

The work shop agenda will include 5 2-hour sessions over 2 days, each featuring 2 graduate student presentations, as well as:

  1. A presentation by CAM director Joshua Epstein of his new book Agent_Zero: Toward Neurocognitive Foundations for Generative Social Science, Princeton University Press. An NIH Director’s Pioneer Award (DP1) funded both his book and this Workshop, which will produce new ideas and collaborations continuing this line of research.
  2. A Saturday morning round table discussion on “Building a research agenda and academic career as an agent-based modeler” lead by Michael Makowsky (Johns Hopkins University)