Chris Glazner

Dr. Chris Glazner

MITRE

Falls Church, Virginia / Düsseldorf, Germany

About Me:

I'm a research engineer at MITRE who, among other things, builds simulation models to help the government think through decisions in complex systems. As of late, I've been returning to my roots in a way and focusing on building models that shed light on policy and investment choices. I've been working in areas as diverse as tackling homelessness, dispositioning nuclear waste, and preparing our cities against bio-terrorism. In grad school, I built hybrid simulation models to help companies better understand how their architecture (from strategy, process, and incentives perspectives) impacted their potential behaviors. I'm interested in all sorts of related fields: social science modeling, policy modeling, behavioral economics...and most things you throw at me. In general, I love building and understanding of how macro/micro structure/rules drive macro behaviors....and what we can do to influence the behavior of those systems. Fun stuff.

I've done the majority of my work in a program called AnyLogic of the past few years. It's a highly versatile and outrageously expensive Swiss Army knife of a simulation environment, but it allows the easy development of system dynamics, agent based, discrete event, and especially hybrid models, all in one package. I haven't used NetLogo/RePast in years, but looking forward to messing around with those tools again.

Objectives

I'm looking to meet amazing, interesting people and learn about diverse applications of these ideas. I'm really looking forward to the exchange of ideas among such a diverse group. Additionally, I'm excited about being able to take a step back from my day-to-day activities and just think deeply for a change. What a breath of fresh air! I am looking forward to a project that can in some way tackle decision making in complex, uncertain environments. I've got some stories and access to data.... :) Topics a government would like earn Brownie points.

Personal

I'm an outdoor addict...I spend the majority of my free time whitewater kayaking, backcountry skiing, hiking & camping....that sort of thing. I know that while I'm here I'll be doing a weekend backpacking trip out of Pecos, and paddling whitewater in Colorado on another weekend...plus more, I'm sure. Kindred folks are welcome to join. I have a life long interest in Native American culture and music, although mostly focused on the southern plains(Kiowa, Comanche, Ponca, Osage, Pawnee). Still, I'm sure I'll fit in just fine with some Taos pueblo round dance tunes. At the present moment, I'm learning to speak German in preparation for a year-long move to Düsseldorf, Germany immediately following CSSS. Life is good. I'm staying in a house in the mountains and hiking to St. John's every day. I'm also learning how to play fiddle, so I guess it's a good thing I have an isolated place to myself!

Background:

• PhD, MIT, Engineering Systems, 2009 Dissertation: "Understanding Behavior of Enterprises using Hybrid Simulation Models of Enterprise Architecture"
• MS, MIT, Technology Policy Program, 2005
• BS, UT-Austin, Electrical Engineering, Signal/Image Processing, 2002
• BA, UT-Austin, Plan II, interdisciplinary Liberal Arts with an emphasis in Anthropology, 2002