Thomson McFarland

Me and my oldest daughter, Annie

Howdy. I'm Tom McFarland, coming to CSSS via a "Business Network" relationship between SFI and my employer, the US Department of Defense. In addition to being a devoted civil servant, I am ABD in Political Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where I studied American politics through the lens of microeconomic theory, statistical analysis, and computational models.

I am the father of two daughters, ages 2 and 4, which makes me a bit wistful about being away from them for Father's Day. But I suppose I will have to ease my sorrows with some incredible hiking, camping, and green chile burgers.

My Interests

I am interested, broadly, in computational modeling and evolutionary game theory, particularly as applied to actual policy problems.

Areas of Expertise

I have a strong understanding of statistical learning, applied statistics, and econometrics (and associated R/Stata coding skills). While I am a bit rusty, I also have a working understanding of microeconomic (game) theory.

Goals for CSSS

I am attending CSSS basically to tool up and mingle with other folks who find this material fascinating, challenging, and (perhaps primarily) useful.

Project Ideas

I have a few ideas, but I'm not sure exactly what I most want to pursue while at CSSS. One area that sort of vaguely want to look at is the issue of dynamics in evolutionary games where the single-shot equilibria are substantively unsatisfying (I know, I know, very technical).