Strategic Behavior and the Science of Social Networks

6^th April 2011, 15:30 Ashton Lecture Theatre
Professor Michael Kearns
University of Pennsylvania

Abstract

The modern ability to carefully measure large-scale social networks has driven new empirical studies and theoretical models of growth, dynamics, influence, and collective behavior in such systems. This emerging science is inherently interdisciplinary, with key contributions coming from sociologists, computer scientists, mathematicians, physicists, and economists.

While much of the empirical investigation so far has focused on documenting social network structure or topology, less is understood about how topology *matters* --- that is, in what ways social network structure influences behavior and collective outcomes. In this talk I will survey some of the progress on this topic, particularly in settings in which there is some kind of strategic or economic interaction taking place in the network. I will illustrate some of the concepts with results from an extensive series of human-subject experiments in networked interaction conducted at Penn.

Biography

Since 2002 Michael Kearns has been a professor in the Computer and Information Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania, where he holds the National Center Chair in Resource Management and Technology. His research interests include topics in machine learning, algorithmic game theory, social networks, and computational finance.

He is Founding Director of Penn Engineering's new Market and Social Systems Engineering (MKSE) Program, and has secondary appointments in the Statistics and Operations and Information Management (OPIM) departments of the Wharton School. Until July 2006 he was co-director of Penn's interdisciplinary Institute for Research in Cognitive Science. He also works closely with a quantitative trading group at SAC Capital in New York City. He has consulted widely for many companies (finance, internet technologies, etc) and occasionally serves as an expert witness/consultant on technology-related legal and regulatory cases. In 2001 was CTO of the European venture capital firm Syntek Capital. During the 90's he worked in basic AI and machine learning research at Bell Labs and AT&T Labs; was the head of the AI department during the last 4 years there. Also served briefly as the head of the Secure Systems Research department. He has served on the editorial boards of well-known journals of Computer Science, machine learning and game theory.