Can There Be a Science of Cities - Bios

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SOLLY ANGEL, Princeton University
Dr. Angel is an international expert on housing and urban development, specializing in issues facing cities in developing countries. His most recent book, Planet of Cities is scheduled for publication in September 2012 by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, together with a companion volume titled Atlas of Urban Expansion, prepared with J. Parent, D. L. Civco and A. M. Blei. Both books focus on the need to engage with the coming global urban expansion. His previous book, Housing Policy Matters: A Global Analysis was published by Oxford University Press in 2000, following the earlier publication of the World Bank’s housing policy paper titled Housing: Enabling Markets to Work, co-authored with the late Stephen K. Mayo. Dr. Angel teaches urban planning at New York University and Princeton University, conducts global comparative research on cities, and consults the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the United Nations on issues of housing and urban development.

SAM ARBESMAN, Ewing Marian Kauffman Foundation
Sam Arbesman is an applied mathematician and network scientist. He is a Senior Scholar at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and a fellow at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. In addition, he writes for popular audiences in such outlets as Wired, The New York Times, and The Atlantic. Arbesman’s first book about how knowledge changes over time entitled "The Half-Life of Facts" will be published in the fall of 2012.

ELSA ARCAUTE, University College London
Elsa Arcaute is a physicist with a master in Mathematics (part III of the Mathematical Tripos) and a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Cambridge, UK. Her doctoral research was on Clifford algebras applied to Penrose's twistors, and to multi-particle wave-functions. She moved to the field of Complex Systems while visiting the Complexity and Networks group at Imperial College London. She later joined the group as a postdoc, developing research on self-regulation in social systems, as part of a multidisciplinary project funded by the EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, UK). The work was done alongside biologists who manipulated ant colonies, engineers who programmed robots, and social scientists who developed an intervention for the viability of an Irish eco-village.

Currently, she is a Research Associate at the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London (UCL), UK. She is part of an ERC (European Research Council) funded project lead by Prof. Michael Batty entitled MECANICITY: Morphology, Energy and Climate cHANge In the CITY. Her main research focuses on scaling laws in cities, and on the definition of city boundaries from a geographic and a network perspective.

MICHAEL BATTY, University College London
Michael Batty is Bartlett Professor of Planning at University College London where he is Chairman of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA). His most recent books are Cities and Complexity (MIT Press, 2007) for which he received the Alonso Prize of the Regional Science Association in 2011, Virtual Geographic Environments (edited with Hui Lin, ESRI Press, 2011), Agent-Based Models of Geographical Systems (edited with A Heppenstall et al., Springer 2012). He is editor of the journal Environment and Planning B. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2001 and the Royal Society in 2009, and awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2004 for ‘services to geography’.

LUIS BETTENCOURT, Santa Fe Institute
Luís M. A. Bettencourt is a Professor at the Santa Fe Institute and a former Senior Research Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He obtained his PhD from Imperial College, University of London, in 1996 for work on critical phenomena in the early Universe, and associated mathematical techniques of Statistical Physics, Field Theory and Non-linear Dynamics. He held postdoctoral positions at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, as a Director’s Fellow in the Theoretical Division at LANL, and at the Center for Theoretical Physics at MIT. In 2000 he was awarded the distinguished Slansky Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory for excellence in interdisciplinary research. Luís carries research in the structure and dynamics of complex systems, with an emphasis on dynamical problems in biology and society. Currently he works on real time epidemiological estimation, information processing in complex systems, innovation in science and technology and urban organization and dynamics. He is a member of advisory committees for international conferences and referees for journals in physics, mathematics, computer science, computational biology, urban studies and for international fellowship programs. He is the Principal Investigator of the Synthetic Cognition team at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which is pursuing new science and technology for image and video processing inspired by biological insights. He is also a consultant for the Office Science and Technology Information of the US Department of Energy on the subject of Scientific and Technological Innovation and Discovery

SEBASTIAN BUSTOS, Harvard University
Sebastian Bustos is a PhD student in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and a Research Fellow at the Center for International Development’s Growth Lab. An economist from the University of Chile, he worked several years in the financial sector and then as an advisor to Minister of Finance of Chile. He came to Harvard to study for his Masters in Public Administration in International Development. His focus of research is in topics related to the economics of entrepreneurship and private sector development. Sebastian is one of the co-authors of the Atlas of Economic Complexity.

RACHEL CARDONE, Consultant
Rachel Cardone is a water and sanitation expert and a food systems enthusiast. She spent 5 years at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, developing the Water, Sanitation & Hygiene strategy, and creating and managing a portfolio of related grants. Her desire to return to content and achieve work-life balance has led to her new role as a consultant. Rachel’s key research interest is in how organizational systems influence quality of life in urban areas, through water, sanitation, solid waste, energy, and food systems From 1998-2007, Rachel consulted for a variety of agencies, including UK’s DFID, the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, and leading sector NGOs, researching and supporting innovations in sector finance; facilitating multi-stakeholder processes; and developing public-private partnerships. From 2005-2007 she was an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA). From 2008-2010, she served as Chair of Seattle Public Utilities’ Water Services Advisory Committee, and from 2010-2011 was a Board member of Worldchanging. She most recently co-authored a chapter on utility financing for “The Urban Transformation”, which will be published by Earthscan in August 2012. Rachel has a Masters of Public Administration from Columbia University’s SIPA, and a BA in History and Anthropology from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.

JUAN PABLO CHAUVIN, Harvard University
Juan Pablo Chauvin is a PhD student of Public Policy, and a researcher associated with the Center for International Development and the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard. His research focuses on the role of industrial composition in the economic development of cities and regions. In the past he was Consultant with the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ) in Ecuador where he advised local and provincial governments on economic development policies. He also held teaching positions at three Ecuadorian universities. He holds a BA in Economics and a BA in Sociology from Universidad San Francisco de Quito, a MPP in Local Development from FLACSO-Ecuador and an MPA in International Development from Harvard.

SIEW ANN CHEONG, Nanyang Technological University
Dr CHEONG Siew Ann was born in Singapore in 1969. After getting through his primary, secondary, and junior college education in Ama Keng Primary School, the Chinese High School, and Hwa Chong Junior College respectively, and thereafter a contract service with the Singapore Armed Forces, he studied physics at the National University of Singapore. He graduated in 1997 with a BSc (Hons) degree in physics, and went on to obtain his PhD in theoretical condensed matter physics from Cornell University in 2006. He then spent a year and a half as a postdoctoral associate with the Cornell Theory Center, working on biological sequence segmentation, before joining the Nanyang Technological University as an Assistant Professor in Physics and Applied Physics in August 2007. His main research interest is in developing data analysis methods and toy models for understanding the dynamics of complex systems such as biological macromolecules, the brain, earthquakes, financial markets, and infectious diseases. In particular, he works extensively with high-frequency, large-volume time series data, to cluster them, segment them, and also to estimate complex networks based on significant events in such data. His other research interests are in the areas of computational physics and condensed matter physics.

BENJAMIN DE LA PEÑA, Rockefeller Foundation
Benjamin de la Peña is the Associate Director for Urban Development at the Rockefeller Foundation. He works on issues of inclusion, equity and resilience, particularly of urban transportation and mobility and on the interface between formal and informal systems in cities. He previously led the Foundation’s exploration of the emerging dynamics around cities, information and inclusion.

Benjamin was born and raised up in Metro Manila, one of the 20 largest urban agglomerations in the world. He’s worked on urban slum, urban planning and infrastructure projects internationally. Previously he served as Associate Director for Implementation at Smart Growth America and worked with communities across the U.S. to implement progressive and innovative development strategies. He has a Masters in Urban Planning from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and a B.A. in Communications (Journalism) from the University of the Philippines.

NICHOLAS de MONCHAUX, University of California, Berkeley
Nicholas de Monchaux is an architect, urban designer, and theorist. As well as directing his Oakland-based design practice, he is Assistant Professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the University of California, Berkeley, where he helps direct the Berkeley Center for New Media. He is the author of Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo (MIT Press, 2011), an architectural history of the Apollo spacesuit, as well as related themes of midcentury media, fashion, technology, and nature. de Monchaux received his B.A. with distinction in Architecture, from Yale, and his Professional Degree (M.Arch.) from Princeton. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a designer for Michael Hopkins & Partners in London, and Diller, Scofidio + Renfro in New York. de Monchaux's work has been published and reviewed widely, including in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, and has been supported by the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts, the Macdowell Colony, the Santa Fe Institute, and the Smithsonian Institution. In 2011, he was named an inaugural fellow of the Seed Fund in San Francisco, and Michael Kalil fellow of the School of Constructed Environments, Parsons the New School for Design. de Monchaux's urban design proposals have been exhibited at the San Jose 01 Bienalle, at the 2010 Biennial of the Americas, and SFMOMA; the work will be one of eight featured projects at the US Pavilion of the 13th Venice Architecture Bienniale. He has received design awards and citations from the International Union of Architects, Pamphlet Architecture, and the Van Alen Institute, who awarded him the 2000 John Dinkeloo Memorial Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome.

MICHAIL FRAGKIAS, Arizona State University
Michail Fragkias received his Ph.D. in Economics from Clark University in 2004 focusing on spatial, urban, and environmental economics. From September of 2003 to September of 2006, Michail was a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Environmental Science and Policy at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. Since November of 2006 he is the Executive Officer of the IHDP Urbanization and Global Environmental Change project housed by the Global Institute of Sustainability at Arizona State University. His research focuses on the interactions of urbanization and the environment, cities and sustainability, urban land use change and urban growth modeling. In his current position, at the IHDP Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) project, he is driving efforts for a better understanding of the interactions and feedbacks between global environmental change and urbanization at the local, regional, and global scales. (http://michail.fragkias.net)

BRANDON FULLER, New York University
Brandon Fuller is a Research Scholar at the Urbanization Project, a new research center at the New York University Stern School of Business. Fuller is also Director of Charter Cities, a research non-profit founded by NYU economist Paul Romer and focused on urbanization, governance, and development. At the moment, Fuller is part of a team that is advising the Honduran government in its effort to establish a new city in an independent reform zone. Prior to joining NYU and Charter Cities, Fuller was part of an education technology start-up, Aplia, in the San Francisco Bay Area. He also taught economics at the University of Montana in Missoula.

ANDRES GOMEZ-LIEVANO, Arizona State University
Andres Gomez-Lievano agomez26@asu.edu, agomez137@gmail.com Ph.D. student in Applied Mathematics for the Life and Social Sciences School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University. Andŕes Gómez-Lievano was born in Bogota ́, Colombia. He obtained his undergraduate degree in Physics in 2007 and his master degree in Industrial Engineering in 2008 from the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota ́. During his master degree he lived for four months in Santiago, Chile, in collaboration with the Complex Systems Group of the Physics Department at the Universidad de Chile. After completing his master studies, he worked for a year and half as an analyst in the financial risk management division of Sociedades Bol ́ıvar S.A., one of the most renown Colombian companies of the financial sector, developing several analytical and computational tools for identifing, assessing and managing financial risks to which the companies of the Bol ́ıvar group were exposed. In his undegraduate studies he focused mainly in Statistical Mechanics, and his degree project consisted of an analytical and computational study of a sandpile model in a scale-free network topology. In his master thesis, he studied the effects of the fractal makeup of cities on traffic, by modeling different planar street networks and characterizing the distribution of city traffic as a function of the size distribution of unbuilt or green places (such as parks). Andres is currently enrolled as a 2nd year PhD student in the Applied Mathematics for the Life and Social Sciences program at Arizona State University, Tempe. Since 2011 he has been working with the SFI’s research group on Cities, Scaling and Sustainability. So far, his work has focused on urban crime data, specifically homicides data. His interest is not in the particular instances, for which there are plenty of studies and anecdotes about the rise or decline of crime in specific cities, but rather in the most general and universal statistical patterns that might be present across different urban systems, and what they might tell us about the mechanisms underlying the emergence of crime.

HSU ANN GOY, Nanyang Technological University
Hsu Ann GOY is Program Manager of the Complexity Program at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. The program was started in August 2011 with the mission to conduct interdisciplinary research on scientific problems related to finding, understanding and applying the underlying principles of complexity; to provide opportunities for talented faculty and post-docs to initiate and do such research; to attract the best scientists in the world to take part in it; and to establish itself as the leading Asian node in a network of complexity institutes around the world.

Hsu Ann holds a Bachelor degree in Materials Science from the National University of Singapore and a Master degree in Polymer & Polymer Composite Science & Engineering from the University of Sheffield, UK. She has an increasing interest in complexity science and counts reading as one of her favourite pastimes. Hsu Ann is concurrently Program Manager for International Affairs in the President’s Office at NTU.

JUSTIN GREENE
Justin comes from a creative background and trained as an Architect (B. Arch - Syracuse 1992).His early career was focused on urban scale redevelopment projects in New York City and Santa Fe. He thought he was becoming interdisciplinary when he went to grad school for an MBA (UNM 2002). He has lived in New York City, Syracuse, Florence, Rio and Sao Paulo.Now, Justin lives in Santa Fe, developing real estate and small entrepreneurial businesses.

TIMOTHY GULDEN, George Mason University
Timothy Gulden is a Research Assistant Professor with the Center for Social Complexity in the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University. His research focuses on modeling complex systems in the context of empirical data. He holds a PhD from the University of Maryland School of Public Policy where he explored agent-based modeling as a tool for policy analysis. He has been a visiting scholar at the Brookings Institution's Center for Social and Economic Dynamics (CSED) and attended the Santa Fe Institute's Complex Systems Summer School. During the 1990’s he was the technical director of the GIS program for Westchester County, New York. His interests include the quantitative study of conflict dynamics, modeling adaptation to a changing climate, understanding the human and economic flows driving changes in the global urban system, and the development of novel urban metrics based on nighttime lights.

MARCUS HAMILTON, Santa Fe Institute
Marcus received his B.Sc. from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London in 1998, his M.Sc. from the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico in 2002 and his PhD in 2008. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the Program in Interdisciplinary Biological and Biomedical Sciences in the Department of Biology, University of New Mexico from 2008-2010, and is currently a postdoctoral fellow at SFI working with Geoffrey West, Luis Bettencourt, and Hyejin Youn in the cities group.

Marcus has a broad background in evolutionary anthropology, archaeology, and theoretical ecology. His research focuses on quantitative human ecology over time and space. He works at multiple scales, from life history theory and behavioral ecology, to population dynamics and the biogeography of human diversity, and from hunter-gatherer societies to contemporary nation states. His research seeks to understand the unifying energetic and informational principles that have shaped the development of human ecology and social organization over our evolutionary history both for reasons of basic scientific interest but also in delineating the potential future trajectories of human societies. As part of the cities groups, at SFI Marcus’s research has focused on the dynamics of firms, markets, and economies, and works closely with collaborators at Boeing.

COLIN HARRISON, IBM
Dr. Harrison is Distinguished Engineer and inventor of IBM’s Smarter Cities architecture. He was previously Director of Strategic Innovation in IBM Europe and Director of Global Services Research. He is Master Inventor and Member of the IBM Academy of Technology. He spent 1972-77 at CERN developing the SPS accelerator and its distributed, real-time control system. In 1977 at EMI Central Research Laboratories he led development of the first clinical MRI system. At IBM since 1979 he has worked on micromagnetics, medical imaging, parallel computing, mobile computing, intelligent agents, telecommunications, knowledge management, , and Smarter Cities. He studied at Imperial College and University of Munich, earning a PhD in Materials Science. He is Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology, Senior Member of the Institution of Electronic and Electrical Engineers and Founder Member of the Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. He is Expert Advisor to the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences and has been Visiting Scientist at MIT, Harvard Medical School, and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. He has published some 60 articles. Passions include photography, writing, and mountain walking. He speaks English, French, and German and lives with his wife Lynn in the Connecticut forest by the Housatonic River

PAUL HARTSOCK
Mr. Hartsock has a strong interest in global urbanization, design, and development, especially in the developing world given demographic trends and resource constraints. Areas of interest include the identification of appropriate policies, designs and technologies; and how to achieve goals in complex political and economic environments. Mr. Hartsock chaired and managed two public companies in Asia that invested in and developed projects in China, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Canada and the United States. He had previously been the Corporate Executive-Business Development for one of Hong Kong’s oldest and largest group of companies, the Wharf (Holdings) Limited. He originally moved to Asia to open a management consulting office for the MAC Group, a strategic consulting firm based out of Harvard and Stanford. His education includes a Master of Business Administration from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, a Master of Urban Planning from the College of Architecture and Urban Planning (now the College of Built Environments) at the University of Washington, and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from the University of Cincinnati. He has taught and lectured in community planning and architecture programs. He is a resident of Santa Fe, on the Board of Directors of the Frank Lloyd Wright Fellows, and President of the Board of Trustees of Santa Fe’s Desert Academy.

LYNDON HAVILAND, Aspen Institute
With more than 25 years’ experience in domestic and international public health, Dr. Haviland brings broad expertise in management consulting, health policy, advocacy, social marketing, corporate social responsibility, and branding, as well as applied research design and evaluation. A passionate advocate for social justice and women’s and children’s health around the world, Dr. Haviland serves as a senior strategy fellow for the Aspen Institute, and acted as a Senior Project Leader for the UN Secretary-General’s Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health. This initiative helped to align hundreds of world actors around a common strategy for saving more than 16 million lives and raised more than $40 billion in new resources for women and children. Dr. Haviland has directed programs in philanthropy, HIV/AIDS care, maternal and child health care, vaccines and tobacco prevention and cessation services. She has also worked in a broad range of professional environments spanning domestic, academic, multinational and multilateral organizations and including the Aspen Institute, UNAIDS, the UN, the UN Foundation, HRSA and SPNS projects, UNDP, WHO, the International Medical Corps, the American Legacy Foundation, and the award winning truth® campaign against smoking which won both a gold and silver Effie award during her tenure. Dr. Haviland serves on the Board of Directors of Pact, where she is leading an effort to fund microfinance programs for impoverished women worldwide and recently completed a rotation on the Executive Board of the American Public Health Association where she was awarded two of their highest honors. She holds a masters and a doctorate degree in public health, and has completed Advanced Management & Leadership training at the Harvard Business School. An accomplished writer and public speaker, Dr. Haviland has published more than 25 peer reviewed publications and is a regular contributor to the Harvard Business School Alumni magazine.

ROB HRANAC, Iteris, Inc.
Rob Hranac is Vice President of Iteris, Inc. His experience revolves around the connection between transportation systems and information technology. He has a decade of practical experience working with public sector agencies deploying technology to monitor, model, and optimize a broad array of transportation systems. He has specific expertise in geographic information systems, travel demand models, and traffic microsimulation models.

ALFRED HUAN, University of Oxford
Alfred Huan obtained his DPhil (Physics) from the University of Oxford, UK in June 1987. He was appointed Professor and Head of the Division of Physics and Applied Physics in the School of Physical & Mathematical Sciences in March 2005. Previous to that, he had spent 16 years at the National University of Singapore and has also held a joint appointment at the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, A*STAR where he was Principal Scientist and Cluster/Programme Manager. His research interests lie primarily in studying the electronic structure and charge carrier dynamics in solids through photoemission and ultrafast spectroscopy. He has served on the International Steering Committees for the IVC and the VASSCAA conference series. He has been active on SERC’s review panels and is a Visiting Professor at Sun Yat-Sen University, PR China. He finds enjoyment in playing chess and bridge, and the occasional walk in the countryside.

TERENCE HUNG, Institute of High Performance Computing
Dr. Terence Hung is currently the Deputy Executive Director at the Institute of High Performance Computing. He assists the Executive Director to oversee the operations and strategic directions of the institute. In his previous appointment, he had led a group of researchers and provided management and technical leadership in areas such as HPC, grid/cloud computing, data modeling and analytics, digital modeling and visualization. Terence is an adjunct Associate Professor with the School of Computer Engineering at the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. He also serves in various professional bodies: Microsoft’s Technical Computing Executive Advisory Council, the Gerson Lehrman Group, HP-CAST board and Singapore’s National Grid Advisory Council. Terence plays an active role in formulating strategic research visions and spearheading local/international collaborations for key research initiatives. He served as PI and co -PI for 11 key international/local grant-supported research initiatives. He has worked on e-Science and and co-directed a joint research effort with HP Labs to investigate new utility/cloud computing technologies. Terence’s recent activity involves the establishment of a programme to build capabilities in complex systems modelling, with a particular focus on urban planning. Terence graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1993 with a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering.

GARY LEE KEE KHOON, Institute of High Performance Computing
Gary Lee Kee Khoon is a Senior Scientist at A-Star, Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC), Singapore. He received his Bachelors (Hons) and Mphil degree in Control Engineering from the University of Sheffield, UK, and subsequently his PhD from the University of Southampton, UK. He also worked as a Senior Research Associate at the University of East Anglia, UK. Gary is the currently the Deputy Director for Computer Science department at IHPC. He is the department's lead for strategy planning and engagement with industry partners. He is also the Capability Group Manager for Cross-disciplinary Data-intensive Analytics (CDA). The CDA group researches analytics methodologies for data harmonization, workflow recommender and integrated tools to generate insight quickly and accurately from large-scale data to apply them to real problems. Recently, he was appointed as the assistant programme manager for the Complex Systems programme, focusing on the data-driven approach for modelling. He has also served as a Technical Committee Member at IEEE’s Emergent Technology Technical Task Force on Mimetic Computing and a Committee Member at the Pattern Recognition in Bioinformatics. His research interests include applied machine learning to cross domain, smart and optimised data analytics workflow and spatio-temporal data analytics.

JOSE LOBO, Arizona State University
U.S. (B.S. in Physics, Masters in Regional Planning and a Ph.D. in Regional Science, all from Cornell University; his kindergarten degree was obtained from another institution). His various research interests have as a common thread invention and innovation in urban areas, with a recent emphasis on the effects of urban scale on socio-economic development. Currently he is a Research Faculty at Arizona State University where he is affiliated with the School of Sustainability, the W.P. Carey School of Business, and the Graduate Program in Applied Mathematics for the Social and Biological Sciences. When he grows up he would like to be a scuba diving instructor.

MIKE MATHIEU, Walk Score, Front Seat
Mike Mathieu is an active founder, investor, or advisor to dozens of tech startups using tech for good. He is Chairman and Co-Founder of Walk Score (the leading measure of neighborhood walkability, serving up 6 millions scores a day on more than 15,000 real estate web sites), Executive Chairman of Front Seat (a civic software company), founding board member of New Media Ventures (a national network of political-tech investors), long-time partner in Social Venture Partners (the leading venture philanthropy network), and chair of the board’s Strategic Planning Committee at KUOW Puget Sound Public Radio.

Prior to Front Seat, Mike was founder and CEO of All Star Directories, an INC 500-listed online marketing company. He spent a decade at Microsoft where he was General Manager of MSN.com and designed early versions of Microsoft Excel and Word. He received a BA in the History of Science from Harvard University, where he was the only sophomore ever awarded the Hoopes Prize for undergraduate research. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two daughters. In his spare time Mike enjoys skiing, running, reading and travel.

MARIA A. MEJIA, Humboldt Institute
BA from los Andes University with double major in Political Science and Economics, and a minor in Architecture and Cities (December 2009). Academic experience related to assistance classes, research and statistics analysis; labor experience in public policy analysis, public investment management and inter-institutional coordination related to foreign affairs, development and environment issues. Interested in participate in creative teamwork projects with comprehensive and systemic approach.

CHRISTOPHER MONTEROLA, Institute of High Performance Computing
Chris is a Senior Scientist at the Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC) in A*STAR Singapore. He is currently the technical Principal Investigator of the Complex Systems programme at A*STAR/IHPC. He obtained his Ph.D. Physics degree in 2002 from the National Institute of Physics, University of the Philippines Diliman, where he was an associate professor from 1997-2012. He was also the coordinator of the Instrumentation Physics Laboratory from 2008-2012, which is the leading physics research group in the Philippines. To date, he has mentored 32 students (8 of 32 are PhD Physics) who successfully obtained their academic degrees.

In 2011, Chris received the Outstanding Young Scientist Award (OYS) from the National Academy of Science and Technology because of his significant contributions to science and technology in the country. In the same year, he was an awardee of the NAST's Talent Search for Young Scientist Award. In 2009, the SEA-EU-NET organized a mapping study of excellent researchers from the ASEAN member countries with the objective of raising "awareness for the existence of high-quality research" and presenting "a pool of excellent researchers in Southeast Asia." It featured Chris as one of the very few excellent researchers in the region. His research expertise involves: Modeling Complex Systems, Computational Physics, Statistical Physics, Nonlinear Dynamical Systems, Neural Networks (see www.chrismonterola.com).

CARLO RATTI, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
An architect and engineer by training, Carlo Ratti practices in Italy and teaches at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he directs the Senseable City Lab. He graduated from the Politecnico di Torino and the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées in Paris, and later earned his MPhil and PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK. Carlo holds several patents and has co-authored over 200 publications. As well as being a regular contributor to the architecture magazine Domus and the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, he has written for the BBC, La Stampa, Scientific American and The New York Times. His work has been exhibited worldwide at venues such as the Venice Biennale, the Design Museum Barcelona, the Science Museum in London, GAFTA in San Francisco and The Museum of Modern Art in New York. His Digital Water Pavilion at the 2008 World Expo was hailed by Time Magazine as one of the ‘Best Inventions of the Year’. In June 2007 the Italian Minister of Culture named Carlo as a member of the Italian Design Council - an advisory board to the Italian Government that includes 25 leaders of design in Italy. He was also named 2009 Inaugural Innovator in Residence by the Queensland Government, included in Esquire Magazine’s ‘2008 Best & Brightest’ list and in Thames&Hudson’s selection of ‘60 innovators’ shaping our creative future. In 2010 Blueprint Magazine selected him as one of the ‘25 People Who Will Change the World of Design’, Forbes listed him as one of the ‘Names You Need To Know’ in 2011 and Fast Company named him as one of the ’50 Most Influential Designers in America’. Carlo was recently a presenter at TED 2011 and is serving as a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council for Urban Management. He is also a program director at the Strelka Institute for Media, Architecture and Design in Moscow and a curator of the 2012 BMW Guggenheim Pavilion in Berlin. For further information on Carlo’s projects, visit www.carloratti.com and senseable.mit.edu

HORACIO SAMANIEGO, Universidad Austral
Horacio Samaniego was trained in landscape ecology in the Lab of Prof. Bruce T. Milne at the University of New Mexico (UNM). After beign a postdoc with Melanie Moses in the Computer science Dept. at UNM and the Center of Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico he is now part of the faculty in the School of Forestry and Natural Resources at the Universidad Austral in southern Chile. His interested is in understanding general properties and dynamics of complex systems. In particular, the role of diversity in ecological and urban systems. How populations use energy and transportation networks and its consequences for a sustainable environment and the use of information and biodiversity inventories and databases for conservation planning.

MARKUS SCHLAPFER, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Markus Schläpfer studied Environmental Engineering at ETH Zurich, where he also obtained his Ph.D. in 2010 for contributions to the reliability analysis of infrastructure networks. During the doctoral studies he stayed several months as a Visiting Researcher at the Imperial College London. Since 2011, Markus Schläpfer works as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Senseable City Lab, MIT. The focus of his interdisciplinary research is the understanding of complex socio-technical interactions by using digital traces of collective human behavior, eventually helping to design efficient and sustainable infrastructures in urban regions.

KAREN SETO, Yale University
Karen Seto is an Associate Professor at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale University. Professor Seto studies the human transformation of land and the links between urbanization, global change, and sustainability. A geographer by training, her research includes understanding urbanization dynamics, forecasting urban growth, and examining the environmental consequences of land-use change and urban expansion. She is an expert in satellite remote sensing analysis and has pioneered methods to reconstruct historical land-use and to develop empirical models to explain and forecast the expansion of urban areas. Her geographic region of specialization is Asia, where she has worked on urban development issues for more than fifteen years. Currently she has active research projects in China and India. Professor Seto is Co-Chair of the IHDP (International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change) Urbanization and Global Environmental Change Project (UGEC), and a Coordinating Lead Author for the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. She also serves on the U.S. Carbon Cycle Scientific Steering Group, the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) Committee to Advise the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the NRC Geographical Sciences Committee, and the NRC Committee on Needs and Requirements for Land-Change Modeling

KEVIN STOLARICK, University of Toronto
Dubbed the “Official Statistician of the Creative Class”, Kevin Stolarick, PhD, combines a depth of knowledge with an appreciation of the importance of finding and sharing the knowledge or “pearls of wisdom” gained from his comprehensive understanding of the Creative Class and the Creative Economy. He is the Research Director at The Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. He has previously held faculty positions at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, and worked with technology in the insurance industry as a manager of strategic projects. He holds a PhD in Business Administration and an MBA from the Tepper School of Management, Carnegie Mellon University and a BS in Honors in Applied Computer Science from Illinois State University. His research interests include the relationship between firm performance and information technology and the impacts of technology, tolerance, talent, and quality of place on regional growth and prosperity. Kevin provided quantitative research and analytical support for several of Richard Florida’s books including The Rise of the Creative Class and Rise Revisited (the 10th Anniversary Edition). He continues in collaboration with Richard and others researchers to examine growth and development of the Creative Class and Creative Economy theory.

MELANIE WALKER, Gates Foundation

GEOFFREY WEST, Santa Fe Institute
Geoffrey West is Distinguished Professor and former President of the Santa Fe Institute (2005 - 2009) and an Associate Fellow of the Säid Business School, Oxford University. Previously, he was leader of high energy physics at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he is a Senior Fellow. He received his BA from Cambridge University (1961) and PhD in physics from Stanford University (1966). After spells at Cornell and Harvard Universities, he returned to Stanford in 1970 to join the faculty. West is a theoretical physicist whose primary interests have been in fundamental questions in physics and biology, ranging from the elementary particles, their interactions and cosmological implications to the origins of universal scaling laws and a unifying quantitative framework of biology. His research in biology has included metabolic rate, growth, aging & mortality, sleep, cancer, and ecosystem dynamics. Recent work focuses on developing an underlying quantitative theory for the structure and dynamics of cities, companies and long-term global sustainability including rates of growth and innovation, and the accelerating pace of life. He has given many colloquia and public lectures world-wide. Among recent awards are the Mercer Prize from the Ecological Society of America, the Weldon Prize for Mathematical Biology and the Glenn Award for Aging research. He has been featured in many publications including The New York Times, Nature, Science, The Financial Times, and Scientific American and participated in TV productions including Nova, the BBC and National Geographic. His research was selected as a breakthrough idea of 2007 by Harvard Business Review and, in 2006, he was selected for Time magazine's list of "100 Most Influential People in the World".

HYEJIN YOUN, Santa Fe Institute
I am a statistical physicist by training. Therefore, I believe that there can be found an underlying law governing some aspects of phenomena of the systems that at first look very disparate and diverse, and yet, from which universal patterns emerged through proper scaling functions. Formerly I studied the emergence of Nash equilibrium from human dynamics in transportation network with a game theoretic perspective where a paradox of that less is better is observed. My current works focus on the quantitative assessment of urban scaling in general with several aspects: energy consumption in relation to carbon dioxide emission, the structural properties of human population density, and urban economic diversity in terms of establishments. As a PostDoc Fellow, I am working closely with SFI Distinguished Professor Geoffrey West and SFI Resident Professor Luis Bettencourt on the theory of scaling behaviors of cities.