Sean Brocklebank

I am a 2nd year economics PhD student at the University of Edinburgh, and I’m spending my entire summer in the USA, between the Library of Congress and the Santa Fe Institute.

This page is structured around the four questions that the students of last year’s CSSS were asked to answer, because I assume that I’ll have to answer these eventually anyhow.

1. What are your main interests?

My research area is evolutionary game theory, and my subject is the evolution of personality, but I am interested in both economics and psychology more broadly.

2. What sorts of [useful] expertise can you bring to the group?

I could run tutorials about game theory, evolutionary game theory, general economics, or more specialized macroeconomics (eg business cycles or growth). I’ve also got a couple of years experience tutoring the refresher mathematics course for the economics MSc at Edinburgh, so I can do some quick reviews of multivariable calculus or linear algebra if somebody wants that.

3. What do you hope to get out of the CSSS?

I’m hoping to learn techniques for richer types of agent-based modeling and to apply these to social evolution. I’d also like to have some good long chats about the philosophy underneath the methodologies that we’re learning (as well as the methodologies which are supplanted, of course).

4. Do you have any possible projects in mind for the CSSS?

Yes-—I’d like to do an Axelrod-ish “evolution of cooperation” simulation in which: (a) there is some structure to the agents’ interactions, and (b) the strategies that the agents choose from are continuous (i.e. rather than just a binary prisoners’ dilemma with the choices “cooperate” or “defect”, there can be degrees of cooperation—-you can be a bit helpful, or very helpful, etc.).

Contact Details:

verarium@gmail.com

202) 713 - 4282