Keynote Speaker

Tom Carter, PhD

Professor OF COMPUTER SCIENCE AT stanislaus state University

Dr. Tom Carter has been a professor at CSU Stanislaus since 1981, starting in the Mathematics Department. In 1982, he helped found the Computer Science Department. Over the years, he has played a central role in the creation and development of the Cognitive Studies program at Stanislaus State, and has been involved with the University Honors program. His central areas of focus recently have been complex adaptive systems, large datasets, and bioinformatics.

Facilitators

Facilitators will guide and mentor teams during the conference, supplying Complexity Science references, impactful connections, problem-solving frameworks, tooling, relevant data sets, and more. Their mission is to guide the "how" of the hackathon, by enabling teams to embrace diverse perspectives between teammates, to interface with system stakeholders to gather feedback, to draw inspiration from the Complexity literature, and ultimately to accomplish initial goals together (whether that be a research proposal, a business plan, or another outcome). Many teams that form at a Complexity Weekend event go on to do great things together, and stay connected to our Applied Complexity community of practice through monthly virtual events.

Michael Zargham, PhD

Founder and CEO at BlockScience; Visiting Researcher at WU Vienna (Cryptoeconomics Institute) 

Python • Systems Engineering • Political Economy • Blockchain • Data Science

Michael Zargham earned his PhD in Electrical and Systems Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania in 2014 where he developed novel methods for decentralized dynamic resource allocation in networked systems. Zargham is the founder of engineering research and design firm BlockScience, which specializes in estimation, decision, and control of complex societal and economic systems. He is affiliated with the Vienna University of Economics and Business in the Interdisciplinary Institute for Cryptoeconomics.

Alexis Wichowski, PhD

DEPUTY CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER AT NYC; ADJUNCT ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Information • Evolution • Technology • Psychology • Biology

Alexis Wichowski serves as Deputy Chief Technology Officer for New York City and teaches at Columbia University. Prior work includes: Red Cross, State Department, US Mission to the United Nations, media impact research, information architecture development, web coding, theater production, foreign sitcoms, and pretzel vending. PhD in Information Science; BA in Chinese; recently published "The Information Trade: How Big Tech Conquers Countries, Challenges Our Rights and Transforms Our World" (HarperCollins).

Sudebi Thakurata

Faculty member at srishti institute of art, design & Technology; CO-FOUNDER AT DEPICENTRE CONSULTING

Complex Systems Thinking • Design • Learning • Leadership • Futurism

Sudebi is a narrative designer, creative facilitator, educator, futurist & writer. She designs experiences, engagement, and environment that allow people to think and dialogue. By making their thinking and interaction visible to others, she helps people discover their own designs and narratives using different modes and media. She is focused on social, environmental, and cultural issues, inter-weaving design thinking, imagination, complex systems thinking, pedagogy, crafts, visual and performing arts, oral history, ethnography, and research to co-create inclusive possibilities.

Palma Strand, JD

PROFESSOR OF LAW & DIRECTOR AT CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY; CO-FOUNDER AND RESEARCH DIRECTOR AT CIVITY

Sociology • Conflict Resolution • Democracy • Law and Justice

Strand is trained in the disciplines of civil engineering, law, and conflict engagement, with degrees from Stanford and Georgetown Universities. After more than 20 years on various law faculties, she moved to Creighton’s Department of Interdisciplinary Studies. She researches law’s emergence from civic relationships, systemic justice and injustice as emergent properties, and how current institutions operate to reproduce inequity. She practices building relationships and facilitating conversations to create civity (www.civity.org).

Steve Phelan, PhD

DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP AT FAYETTEVILLE STATE UNIVERSITY

Agent-based Models • Entrepreneurship • Economics • Limits of AI

Steven E. Phelan is Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship at Fayetteville State University, part of the University of North Carolina system. He received his PhD entitled "Using Artificial Adaptive Agents to Explore Strategic Landscapes" in 1998. He has since published several articles on the application of complexity science to management and economics. His first book, "Startup Stories: Lessons for Everyday Entrepreneurs", was published in July 2020.

Krzysztof (Kris) Paruch

RESEARCHER AT RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR CRYPTOECONOMICS AT WU VIENNA

Research • Mathematics • Cryptoeconomics • Token Engineering • Complex Systems Engineering

Kris researches Cryptoeconomics and Complex Systems Engineering. With a formal education in technical-economic Mathematics at the University of Technology in Vienna and five years working experience in banking and software integration, he understands the financial and regulatory background at the intersection of real-world and cryptoeconomics. His focus at the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at WU Vienna is the development of token engineering research streams, the creation of network design and incentive mechanism structures, and valuation and modeling of crypto assets. His specializations are agent-based economic modeling, game theory and optimization methods, as well as monetary and environmental policy economics.

Anish Mohammed, PhD

CO-FOUNDER AT R2 LABS; HEAD OF RESEARCH AT INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS (SRH BERLIN)

Cryptography and Security • Governance • Blockchain • PMML

Anish has so far worked as a medical doctor, a bioinformatician, a strategy consultant, and a cryptographer. He has spent half of his career researching cryptographic algorithms and protocols at three different research groups, including Microsoft Research. He has advised and worked for various banks and financial institutions, including AIB, HSBC, Lloyds, and Zurich. He was also an early advisor to Ripple and Ocean Protocol, a reviewer of the Ethereum Orange paper, and one of the founding members of the UK Digital Currency Association. He is an adjutant faculty at Harbour Space and the head of research at the Information Sciences Institute at SRH Berlin.

Alexandra (Sasha) Mikhailova

PhD Candidate at UC Davis (Neuroscience Program)

Neuroscience • Microscopy • Communication • Education • Collaborative Drawing 

Alexandra has a background in translational neuroscience studying brain injury in early development. She is now pursuing a PhD examining how immune molecules regulate the proper establishment of connections in the brain. Her research is inherently interdisciplinary, and she hopes to bridge even more fields through Free Energy thinking and collaborative drawing.

Pietro Michelucci, PhD

DIRECTOR AT HUMAN COMPUTATION INSTITUTE; VISITING PROFESSOR AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Human Computation • Collective Intelligence • Crowd AI • Technosocial Platforms • Wicked Problems

Pietro Michelucci is the founding director of the Human Computation Institute, a multidisciplinary innovation center that develops scalable, crowd-powered systems to address “wicked” societal problems. More recently, he is investigating complexity science as a way to make problem-solving systems behave more predictably and effectively in the real world, and applying that to a project called "CrowdMeter" (toward a sustainable "new normal" during COVID-19). For more info, visit: https://crowdmeter.app

Prahlad Menon, PhD

CEO and chief data scientist at QUANTMD

R • Machine Learning • Big Data for Healthcare • Biomedical Signal Analysis • Computational Fluid Dynamics

Dr. Menon's research is focused on artificial intelligence and data science as applied to modeling imaging and time-series data in various domains. He ran the MeDCaVE Lab, which focused on robust algorithmic analysis of biomedical imaging data augmented with quantitative, physics‐based modeling of cardiovascular mechanics & hemodynamics. He has advised 10+ graduate students so far, resulting in over 100 peer-reviewed publications, and has served as faculty at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Richard James MacCowan

FOUNDER AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR AT BIOMIMICRY INNOVATION LAB

Biomimicry • Design • Economics • Behavior • Ecology

Richard is an award-winning designer with a background in behavioral economics and real estate, with further study in urbanism. He has worked with multi-national organizations around the world on complex challenges, in real estate finance, urbanism, asset management, and product design. Richard rarely gets bored and finds common links between a host of subjects from art, science, nature, and design. Based in York in the UK, Richard spends his quiet time with his wife and two young boys.

V. Bleu Knight, PhD

INDEPENDENT Data ScienCE CONSULTANT

Python • Agent-Based Modeling • Neuroscience • Bioinformatics • Optimization • Data Analytics

Bleu is interested in solving complex problems using data sources that are large and diverse. Her PhD research leveraged informatics to understand the biological identity of neural cell subtypes. More recently, she has been using augmented intelligence and agent based modeling to solve problems at industry scale. She has also been exploring how the exploitation of environmental resources establish networks fo information transmission.

Monica Kang

Founder & CEO at InnovatorsBox

Entrepreneurship • Creativity & Innovation • Facilitation • Diversity • Education

Monica Kang, Founder and CEO of InnovatorsBox®, is an educator at heart, transforming workplaces and communities with the power of creativity. Using innovative services and products, she works with industries worldwide including Fortune 500 companies, higher education, government, and nonprofits. Monica is the author of 'ReThink Creativity', has organized for Startup Weekend over the past 5 years, and previously worked in nuclear nonproliferation. 

Jenn Huff, PhD

Independent scholar; Curatorial associate at burke museum of natural history and culture

Anthropology • Technology • Human Evolution • Archaeology • Human-Environment Interaction

Jenn Huff is a quantitative anthropologist and archaeologist who works on deep time questions about human evolution, human migrations into new landscapes, exchange networks, risk & uncertainty, technology change, and human-environment interactions. She is currently working on a book that looks at human evolution and recent cultural perspectives to explore how humans cooperate; and what that means for us in the past, present, and the future. 

Stephen Guerin

FOUNDER aND CEO at Simtable; PRINCIPAL AT RedfishGroup; FACULTY AT COMPLEX SYSTEMS SUMMER SCHOOL (AT SaNTA FE INSTITUTE)

Agent-Based Modeling • Visualization • Self-Organization Theory • Applied Complexity • Wildfires

Stephen Guerin is President of RedfishGroup in Santa Fe, New Mexico, an R&D consultancy applying the emerging science of Complex Adaptive Systems to create living software systems. He is the CEO and Inventor of the SimTable, a spatial augmented reality sand table for sharing GIS agent-based modeling for wildfires, flooding, and hazmat evacuations. Stephen is also Faculty at the Complex Systems Summer School at the Santa Fe Institute. His work centers on visualization and modeling of self-organizing systems.

Sean Griffin

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER at DISASTER TECH

Decision Science • Incident Management • Data Science • Disasters

Sean is the CEO of Disaster Tech, a public benefit company applying data science for decision-making before, during, and after disasters. Sean has served as Director for Incident Management Integration Policy on the White House National Security Council and is a U.S. Navy veteran.

Steven Ganz, PhD

Founder and CEO at Teamifier

Social Innovation • Programming Languages • Artificial Intelligence • Machine Learning

Steven has expertise across various domains and focused in programming languages. He applies this background to Earth Computing, supporting distributed computing with reliable networking, and to his own startup, Teamifier, supporting relationships through innovation and vice versa. As a consultant, Steven performed technical and strategic analyses for organizations from startups to research labs of global Fortune 500 companies. He distilled his knowledge of the vocabulary and culture of Silicon Valley as an author of the acclaimed book, Valley Speak.

Michael Garfield

social media strategist at Santa Fe Institute; host & producer at Future Fossils Podcast; community manager at The Long Now Foundation

Science Communication •  Evolutionary Biology • Paleontology  • Philosophy of Science

Michael is a philosopher and artist whose work anchors our current crises and imagined futures in deep time and a nondual articulation of evolutionary dynamics. Michael splits his time between art, music, writing, parenting, hosting Future Fossils Podcast, social media for the Santa Fe Institute, and community management for The Long Now Foundation. Follow him on Twitter: @michaelgarfield

Denise Easton

Co-founder of complexity space consulting; board chair at plexus institute

Human Systems • Complexity Thinking • Ecosystems • Organization Development • Complexity Practice Models

Denise is an author, consultant and entrepreneur, who finds inspiration working in complex human ecosystems. She is co-founder and principal consultant with Complexity Space Consulting and chairs Plexus Institute. Her work and resource focus on complexity thinking practices and models for organizational development, strategy, and innovation. Her book "Complexity Works! Influencing Pattern-Based Change in Teams & Organizations" introduces a scalable framework for applying Complexity language, distinctions, tools, and lenses.

Jacob Davidson, PhD

PostDOC AT Max Planck Institute for Ornithology (DEPT. OF COLLECTIVE BEHAVIOR)

Collective Behavior • Computer Simulation • Decision-making

Jacob is a theoretical biologist, with a background in physics and engineering.  He takes a quantitative approach to study the behavior of animal groups such as fish, birds, ants, and honeybees. He is interested in how groups process information, adapt to their environment, and coordinate to function together.

Scott David, JD

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT INFORMATION RISK RESEARCH INITIATIVE (UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON, APPLIED PHYSICS LABORATORY)

Business and Operations • Law • Technology • Sociology

Scott David has worked as an attorney for 30 years designing consistent, integrated, and enforceable narratives for harmonically-coupling incommensurables. He has advised global clients about creating rhetorical containers for intangibles of various sorts (financial instruments, derivatives, software, IP, data rights, information privacy, risk, etc), so that they can be transferred, traded and generally moved around.

Richard J. Cordés

DEPLOYMENT STRATEGIST at COGSEC; Partner at Remoter Consulting Group

Open-source Intelligence • Organizational Sensemaking • Systems Warfare • Distributed Teams

R.J. spends his time infusing complexity science into military and intelligence research to generate best practice for remote teams, civilian or otherwise. He is a serial contributor within the Defense Community, working with complexity-oriented organizations on DARPA grants, research, and inter-agency collaborations. He currently represents Remotor and COGSEC in the information warfare subdivision of a working group on expeditionary warfare in addition to sitting on several other committees and working groups in the IEEE, Department of Defense, and Private Sector.

Probal Banerjee

Co-founder & CEO at Depicentre Consulting

Design-led Innovation • Transformative and Emergent Leadership • Executive Coaching • Futurism

Probal is the co-founder and CEO of the design-led collective, Depicentre Consulting. He works on the interfaces of business, learning, design, analytics, innovation, and storytelling. With leadership experience across seven countries strengthening his ability to manage cross-cultural & cross-functional virtual teams in complex organizations, he has a passion for aiding content- & culture-driven organizations in making economic, social, ecological, and educational impact.

Jaclyn (Jax) Asuncion, ACMA, CGMA

CO-CREATOR aT Love is Unlimited; FORMER ASSOC. DIRECTOR AT WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM (ECONOMICS AND FINANCE PROGRAMME)

Accounting • Finance • Storytelling • Education • Collaboration • Wellbeing

Jax mothers a toddler, loves accounting and finance, and instigates fun projects. She is trained in political economy and business administration and has worked in the charity, commercial, and government sectors in Asia, the United States, and Europe. Her projects include climate innovation, unconventional learning, and bringing accounting and finance to The People. She now resides in London and emanates energy universe-wide.