Robert Axtell is a professor at George Mason University, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, where he is departmental chair of the Department of Computational Social Science. He is also a member of the External Faculty of the

Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inclu ...

. Axtell is also the co-Director of the new Computational Public Policy Lab at Mason.

Early life and education

Axtell received his first degree at the

University of Detroit The University of Detroit Mercy is a private Roman Catholic university in Detroit, Michigan. It is sponsored by both the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and the Sisters of Mercy. The university was founded in 1877 and is the largest Catholic univers ...

in 1983 and earned his Ph.D. in Carnegie Mellon University in 1992, where he studied computing, social science, and public policy.

Career

In the early 1990s, whilst still a graduate student, he met

Joshua M. Epstein Joshua Morris Epstein is Professor of Epidemiology at the New York University College of Global Public Health. Formerly Professor of Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins University, with joint appointments in the departments of Applied Mathematic ...

who was to become a key collaborator. This led to Axtell joining Epstein at the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as simply Brookings, is an American research group founded in 1916. Located on Think Tank Row in Washington, D.C., the organization conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in e ...

in 1992. The pair developed a keen interest in mathematical modeling influenced by the work of

Thomas Schelling Thomas Crombie Schelling (April 14, 1921 – December 13, 2016) was an American economist and professor of foreign policy, national security, nuclear strategy, and arms control at the School of Public Policy at University of Maryland, College ...

, with their primary research interest the modeling of complex social, economic, and biological systems using computational

agent based model An agent-based model (ABM) is a computational models, computational model for computer simulation, simulating the actions and interactions of autonomous agents (both individual or collective entities such as organizations or groups) in order to un ...

s. In ''Growing Artificial Societies: Social Science From the Bottom Up'', Epstein and Axtell wrote about the first large scale agent-based computational model, the Sugarscape, developed by Axtell, which they used to explore the role of social phenomenon such as seasonal migrations, pollution, sexual reproduction, combat, and transmission of disease and even culture. Whilst at Brookings, Axtell also undertook visiting roles at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

New School University The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...

and the

. In 2007 Axtell left Brookings for his current post at George Mason University. Axtell is also a member of the steering committee of the Atalaya Institute, using agent based models to help provide evidence to influence social policy. In 2013 Axtell became a visiting professor at Oxford's Hertford College during his sabbatical.

Selected publications

Axtell has authored and co-authored several works including: * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Axtell, Robert L. Complex systems scientists University of Detroit Mercy alumni Living people Carnegie Mellon University alumni George Mason University faculty Year of birth missing (living people)