About Aaron Bramson
I completed my Ph.D. in a joint program with the deptartments of Political Science and Philosophy at the University of Michigan in December 2011. I also earned the certificate in complexity sciences offered by UM. Before coming to Ann Arbor I completed a Masters of Science degree in mathematics at Northeastern University in Boston. Before that I was some kind of PhD student in Economics at Boston University, mostly studying game theory. I graduated from the University of Florida in 1999 with a B.S. in Economics from the school of business administration and a B.A. in philosophy. I originally planned to go directly to a PhD program in philosophy after graduating, but since I was not accepted at any remarkable schools, I decided to spend a year in Japan learning Japanese, teaching English, and doing freelance web design. I currently work as a "researcher-for-hire", jumping from project to project that require my complexity methodology speciality, although I am starting to look for more permanent work.
My research interests include a wide array of topics from microbiology to cosmology, but mostly things in between. Predominantly I consider myself a complex systems methodologist; one who specializes in providing a strong conceptual and moethodlogical foundation for the study of complexity and of particular complex systems. Being true to the inter-disciplinary nature of my complexity research, I take insights from the mathematical and computational underpinnings of one kind of complex adaptive systems and apply it to other systems. Because my primary research goal is to establish a strong conceptual and methodological foundation for complexity science, in addition to devising solutions to particular problems across domains, I also develop sophisticated formal techniques to investigate, measure, and classify dynamical properties in a domain-agnostic way.
To accomplish these research goals requires thorough knowledge in computer modeling, mathematics, statistics, and the conceptual analysis approach of analytical philosophy. It also requires substantial knowledge of several subfields in the physical, biological, and social sciences including, but not limited to, artificial intelligence, evolutionary theory, economics, physics, ecology, molecular biology, engineering, and psychology to name a few. Though my knowledge in each of these fields is limited compared to domain specialists, I have a working knowledge of the main methods and theories and have no difficulty conversing with specialists in their own terms to integrate complexity ideas into collaborative projects. Because I aim to better understand complexity itself, rather than just the workings of some particular type of complex systems, the breadth of research interest is not a lack of focus but rather a focus on an inter-disciplinary topic.
I intend to use this blog to present and develop research and project ideas, as well as to comment on the status on complex systems as a discipline. The resource section includes papers and slides from presentations that I have created related to complex systems. Some are related to a particular project, others are more general, and still others are primarily pedagogical. I have had the opportunity to offer many tutorials on agent-based and network modeling of complex adaptive systems; I have provided some of that material here and we welcome your inquiries and suggestions.
If you'd like more information about me (i.e., information not related to complex systems), then please visit my personal web site at www.bramson.net. You can also contact me at aaronbramson@gmail.com. Feedback on posts is very welcome. Unfortunately we had to turn off commenting because SPAMbots would fill the comment sections with viagra advertisements and things like that. But we DO want to hear from you so feel free to send me a message.