I am investigating the use of machine learning techniques in non-stationary modeling environments to better reproduce aspects of human learning and decision-making in human-natural system simulations.

My interests are to explore aspects of sustainability, resilience, and adaptive management in social-ecological systems using agent-based models and other simulation models.

Pastoral systems, management of common-pool resources, coupled human and natural systems, complex adaptive systems, regime shifts, resilience, ecology of infectious diseases, herder-farmer conflicts, pastoral development, political ecology.

As publically funded science has become increasingly complex, the policy and management literature has begun to focus more attention on how science is structured and organized. My research interests reside at the nexus of science and technology policy, organizational theory, and complexity theory—I am interested in how the management and organization of S&T research influences the implementation of policies and the emergence of organizational strategies and innovation. Although my research involves the use of multiple qualitative and quantitative methods, I rely heavily on agent based modeling and system dynamics approaches in addressing my research questions.

I am interested in the socio-environmental conditions for the emergence of cooperation and mutual aid in social systems and mainly with regard to renewable resources. I consider in this context that Commons are a spatial manifestation of mutual aid.
From a technical point of view, I am very interested in the questions of model exploration (HPC), which led me to integrate the OpenMole community and to contribute to discussions about heuristic exploration.

My research aims to explore the potential of network science for the archaeological discipline. In my review work I confront the use of network-based methods in the archaeological discipline with their use in other disciplines, especially sociology and physics. In my archaeological work I aim to develop and apply network science techniques that show particular potential for archaeology. This is done through a number of archaeological case-studies: archaeological citation networks, visibility networks in Iron Age and Roman southern Spain, and tableware distribution in the Roman Eastern Mediterranean.

I conduct long-term behavioral and ecological field research on several species in the primate community of Amazonian Ecuador to investigate the ways in which ecological conditions (such as the abundance and distribution of food resources) and the strategies of conspecifics together shape primate behavior and social relationships and ultimately determine the kinds of societies we see primates living in. This is a crucial and central focus in evolutionary anthropology, as understanding the ways in which behavior and social systems are shaped by environmental pressures is a fundamental part of the discipline.

I complement my field studies with molecular genetic laboratory work and agent-based simulation modeling in order to address issues that are typically difficult to explore through observational studies alone, including questions about dispersal behavior, gene flow, mating patterns, population structure, and the fitness consequences of individual behavior. In collaboration with colleagues, I have also started using molecular techniques to investigate a number of broader questions concerning the evolutionary history, social systems, and ecological roles of various New World primates.

Development Economics, Environmental Economics, Sustainability, Environment, Climate change, Climate justice, Energy, Clean Energy, Renewable Energy, Complex systems

I have been studying (1) applied discrete choice modelling, (2) consumer choices of seafood, (3) international seafood trade, (4) marine habitat and fishery management, (5) China’s international relation, (6) environment and health, and (7) experimental auctions.

I’m starting to learn ABM and hope to apply the method into my research.

I am currently head of the Working Group POLISES which uses agent-based models to study the impact of policies on land user behavior and consequences on the social-ecological system. This includes agri-environmental schemes for European agriculture and climate related policies such as insurance. In prior projects we investigated intended and unintended effects of global policy instruments on the social-ecological resilience of smallholders. We focused on the impact of policies targeting climate risk in common property regimes of pastoralists in Africa (Morocco and Kenya/Ethiopia).
On a conceptual level, I work in an international team of modellers, psychologists, agroeconomists and natural scientists on adequate representations of human behaviour in agent-based models. Furthermore, I am interested in how to describe models in an appropriate and standardised manner to increase their comprehensibility and comparison and how to foster model reuse and building up on each others work.