Olivia Woolley

Hi, I’m Olivia, a native of Mexico City who hasn’t lived there for a decade. Currently I live in Chicago, where I’m a PhD student in Applied Mathematics at Northwestern University. My research interests are, broadly speaking, in the area of complex networks, stochastic processes, non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and dynamical systems. I’m especially interested in applications to the systems usually studied by the social and behavioral sciences. Currently I think a lot about the dynamics of games on social networks and how they relate to the emergence of different social structures in settings of limited resources. I like thinking about many different kinds of things traveling, good conversations, reading, writing short stories, running and biking. I delight in the consumption of good music and food, wish I could say more about my creative abilities in the two… I’m very excited to meet all of you and learn much in the coming month.

Concerning Dave Feldman's questions:

1. What topics do you have some expertise in and would you be willing to help others learn them? I have some, limited, "expertise" in complex networks, that is, familiar with general definitions, algorithms, different network models, some statistical mechanics/percolation results and relatively well informed about current research. Also have background in the mathematics of dynamical systems, differential equations and critical phenomena/statistical mechanics.

2. What do you want to learn at the CSSS? Anything interesting! For instance, i would like to learn more about how the tools of statistical mechanics, complex networks and other complex systems machinery can be applied to the social sciences. I would like to learn more about evolutionary games, the theory of self organized criticality, complex adaptive systems and get hands-on experience with agent based modeling.

3. Do you have any projects or research interests that would benefit from an interdisciplinary approach? Yes, the above mentioned dynamics of games on social networks and appearance of hierarchical structure in societies.

4. Do you have any ideas for what sort of project you would like to do work on with other CSSS students this summer? Open to many things, but again, the above mentioned.

5. Suppose you could travel one-hundred years in the future and ask researchers any three questions. What would those questions be?

1. What were the greatest mistakes/misguided assumptions of 21st century science? 2. What was the most over-hyped research areas of 21st century science? 3. Can science say anything useful and precise about the evolution of social systems?