Charlie Brummitt

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Photo caption: In my last summer adventure, I did research with a Korean statistical physics group in Seoul, through an NSF summer program. In this photo, the students in the research group and I hiked for a day above the city (faintly visible through the fog/smog) while our professor was out of town. Which one is me should be pretty obvious!

Email address: brummitt@gmail.com

I'm a third-year PhD student in applied math at UC Davis. I study cascades in networks, in both technological systems (such as power grids) and in social ones. A big question for infrastructure systems like power, water, transportation, finance, and so on, is to determine what amount of interdependence balances the benefits of interdependence (such as economies of scale and shared risk) and detriments (such as risk of large, spreading crises). For social systems, I've studied how things go viral, and with increasing ease as we connect in more ways. I'm really excited about work I'm beginning to do on innovation and collaborative problem solving in social networks.

I recently attended two conferences on power grids in Santa Fe, and I'm working on models of blackouts in interdependent power grids. But at the summer school I'm considering doing a project that extends the work I've recently begun on innovation in social networks, hopefully using feedback and ideas from people at the summer school.

I've done some work for Wolfram Research, so I have some pretty good Mathematica skills to share with others. I'm looking forward to exploring Santa Fe's outdoors by foot and by bike (both mountain and road) and to all the spicy red and green chile.