Katherine Dykes

Dajia hao!

I'm looking forward to joining you all in Beijing this summer; I'll have just finished up my Masters program at OSU (a dual-degree in electrical engineering and ag/dev/env economics) and I'll be starting my PhD this fall at MIT in the engineering systems division. I'm looking forward to CSSS; I think it will be a great help in preparing me for my PhD work and I hope I can contribute to the program as well.

- Katherine Dykes

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Responses to questions:

1) My degree in agricultural, environmental, and development economics has exposed me to graduate coursework in microeconomic theory, econometrics and linear/non-linear programming; my work in electrical engineering is more material science - physics based but has required me to take a lot of math and stat classes over the years including stochastic processes, neural network modelling, statistical theory, etc;

2) I hope to gain a good solid overview of applications of complex systems methodology to problems across various discipline so that I can better understand how such methods are applied in different contexts as well as how I can begin to incorporate such methodology into my PhD research which I will begin next year

3) My PhD program is interdisciplinary by definition; I will be a Technology Management and Policy (TMP) track studen in the ESD division; I will be looking at the inter-relationships between technical and economic systems; for instance, most likely I will be working with the energy demand systems analysis or electricity generation models from both technical and economic points of view

4) I am flexible to what types of programs I work on this summer

5) My three questions would be: - What are the new developments in theoretical physics, such as string theory, and what, if any, useful applications have been realized? - How has thinking about decision-making in economic modelling developed and how has this impacted economic models? - What sort of significant and/or unforseen events took place during the 21st century and how did they change the social, political and economic climate as we know them today?