Charlotte is an International PhD graduate originally from New Zealand who first came to ASU to pursue her PhD in Anthropology in Aug 2013, thanks to receiving a Science and Innovation Scholarship through the Fulbright Program. She holds a BS majoring in Genetics and a BA majoring in Anthropology from Otago University, New Zealand. She received her Masters in Anthropology in May 2015 and her PhD in Anthropology in 2022 both from ASU. Her main areas of interest are Human Migration, Migration Decision Making, and Environmental Perceptions.

At present she is an Assistant Research Scientist with the School of Complex Adaptive Systems at ASU where she is primarily focused on her roles as the administrative coordinator for CoMSES.NET and The Open Modeling Foundation. She is also adjunct Anthropology faculty at Phoenix College, and Chandler-Gilbert Community College teaching various undergraduate anthropology courses. She is deeply interested in how computational tools and technologies can be used to explore complex adaptive systems, explore possible futures, and better inform policy and decision makers at the leading edge of change.

Biographical Sketch

(a) Professional Preparation

Brigham Young University Statistics & Computer Science B.S. 1986
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Biostatistics M.S. 1988
North Carolina State University Biomathematics & Entomology Ph.D. 1997

(b) Appointments

Associate Professor 2006-current: Brigham Young University Department of Biology
Assistant Professor 2000-2006: Brigham Young University Department of Integrative Biology
Research Scientist 1997-1999: Agriculture Research Service-USDA Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center.

(c) Publications

i. Five most relevant publications

Ahmadou H. Dicko, Renaud Lancelot, Momar Talla Seck, Laure Guerrini, Baba Sall, Mbargou Low, Marc J.B. Vreysen, Thierry Lefrançois, Fonta Williams, Steven L. Peck, and Jérémy Bouyer. 2014. Using species distribution models to optimize vector control: the tsetse eradication campaign in Senegal. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. 11 (28) : 10149-10154
Peck, S. L. 2014. Perspectives on why digital ecologies matter: Combining population genetics and ecologically informed agent-based models with GIS for managing dipteran livestock pests. Acta Tropica. 138S (2014) S22–S25
Peck, S. L. and Jérémy Bouyer. 2012. Mathematical modeling, spatial complexity, and critical decisions in tsetse control. Journal of Economic Entomology 105(5): 1477—1486.
Peck, S. L. 2012. Networks of habitat patches in tsetse fly control: implications of metapopulation structure on assessing local extinction probabilities. Ecological Modelling 246: 99–102.
Peck, S. L. 2012. Agent-based models as fictive instantiations of ecological processes.” Philosophy & Theory in Biology. Vol. 4.e303 (2012): 12

ii. Five other publications of note

Peck, S. L. 2008. The Hermeneutics of Ecological Simulation. Biology and Philosophy 23:383-402.
K.M. Froerer, S.L. Peck, G.T. McQuate, R.I. Vargas, E.B. Jang, and D.O. McInnis. 2010. Long distance movement of Bactrocera dorsalis (Diptera: Tephritidae) in Puna, Hawaii: How far can they go? American Entomologist 56(2): 88-94
Peck, S. L. 2004. Simulation as experiment: a philosophical reassessment for biological modeling. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19 (10): 530 534
Storer N.P., S. L. Peck, F. Gould, J. W. Van Duyn and G. G. Kennedy. 2003 Sensitivity analysis of a spatially-explicit stochastic simulation model of the evolution of resistance in Helicoverpa zea (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) to Bt transgenic corn and cotton. Economic Entomology. 96(1): 173-187
Peck, S. L., F. Gould, and S. Ellner. 1999. The spread of resistance in spatially extended systems of transgenic cotton: Implications for the management of Heliothis virescens (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). Economic Entomology 92:1-16.

Primate evolutionary biologist and geneticist at the University of Texas at Austin

I am an agent-based simulation modeler and social scientist living near Cambridge, UK.

In recent years, I have developed supply chain models for Durham University (Department of Anthropology), epidemiological models for the Covid-19 pandemic, and agent-based land-use models with Geography PhD students at Cambridge University.

Previously, I spent three years at Ludwig-Maximillians University, Munich, working on Human-Environment Relations and Sustainability, and over two and a half years at Surrey University, working on Innovation with Nigel Gilbert in the Centre for Research in Social Simulation (CRESS). The project at Surrey resulted in a book in 2014, “Simulating Innovation: Computer-based Tools for Rethinking Innovation”. My PhD topic, modeling human agents who energise or de-energise each other in social interactions, drew upon the work of sociologist Randall Collins. My multi-disciplinary background includes degrees in Operational Research (MSc) and Philosophy (BA/MA).

I got hooked on agent-based modeling and complexity science some time around 2000, via the work of Brian Arthur, Stuart Kauffman, Robert Axelrod and Duncan Watts (no relation!).

After being the economic development officer for the Little/Salmon Carmacks First Nation, Tim used all his spare time trying to determine a practical understanding of the events he witnessed. This led him to complexity, specifically human emergent behaviour and the evolutionary prerequisites present in human society. These prerequisites predicted many of the apparently immutable ‘modern problems’ in society. First, he tried disseminating the knowledge in popular book form, but that failed – three times. He decided to obtain PhD to make his ‘voice’ louder. He chose sociology, poorly as it turns out as he was told his research had ‘no academic value whatsoever’. After being forced out of University, he taught himself agent-based modelling to demonstrate his ideas and published his first peer-reviewed paper without affiliation while working as a warehouse labourer. Subsequently, he managed to interest Steve Keen in his ideas and his second attempt at a PhD succeeded. His most recent work involves understanding the basic forces generated by trade in a complex system. He is most interested in how the empirically present evolutionary prerequisites impact market patterns.

To tackle the scientific challenges proposed by landscape dynamics and cooperation processes, I have developed a research methodology based on field work and companion modelling (ComMod) combined with the formalisation of the observed processes and agents based models.
This approach offers the possibility to understand : spatial, social, cultural and / or economic conditions that take place on territories, and to provide prospective scenarios.
These methods have been applied in various contexts: steep slope vineyards landscapes (2011), water resource management cooperation (2015), vegetation cover in dry climate (2017). The established research networks are still active through sustained collaborations and activities.

My technical expertise grew and evolved through investment in several workgroups: MAPS Team (Modelling Applied to Space Phenomena), OSGeo (president of the OSGeo’s French chapter between 2013 and 2016, member of the OSGeo-international chapter since 2015), various initiatives around modelling, exploration and sensibility analysis of spatial patterns behaviours, and more generally in Free Software communities.

Dr. Lilian Alessa, University of Idaho President’s Professor of Resilient Landscapes in the Landscape Architecture program, is also Co-Director of the University of Idaho Center for Resilient Communities. She conducts extensive research on human adaptation to environmental change through resilient design at landscape scales. Much of her work is funded by the National Science Foundation, including projects awarded the Arctic Observing Network, Intersections of Food, Energy and Water Systems (INFEWS) and the Dynamics of Coupled Natural Human Systems programs. Canadian-born and raised, Alessa received her degrees from the University of British Columbia. She also uses her expertise in social-ecological and technological systems science to develop ways to improve domestic resource security for community well-being, particularly through the incorporation of place-based knowledge. Her work through the Department of Homeland Security’s Center of Excellence, the Arctic Domain Awareness Center, involves developing social-technological methods to monitor and respond to critical environmental changes. Lil is a member of the National Science Foundation’s Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education and is on the Science, Technology and Education Advisory Committee for the National Ecological Observing Network (NEON). Professor Alessa also teaches a university landscape architecture capstone course: Resilient Landscapes with Professor Andrew Kliskey. Professor Alessa’s collaborative grant activity with Professor Andrew Kliskey, since coming to the university in 2013, exceeds 7 million USD to date. She has authored over a 100 publications and reports and has led the development of 2 federal climate resilience toolbox assessments, the Arctic Water Resources Vulnerability Index (AWRVI) and the Arctic Adaptation Exchange Portal (AAEP).

Flaminio Squazzoni is Full Professor of Sociology at the Department of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Milan and director of BEHAVE. He teaches “Sociology” to undergraduate students, “Behavioural Sociology” to master students and “Behavioural Game Theory” to PhD students. Untill November 2018, he has been Associate Professor of Economic Sociology at the Department of Economics and Management of the University of Brescia, where he led the GECS-Research Group on Experimental and Computational Sociology.

He is editor of JASSS-Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, co-editor of Sociologica -International Journal for Sociological Debate and member of the editorial boards of Research Integrity and Peer Review and Sistemi Intelligenti. He is advisory editor of the Wiley Series in Computational and Quantitative Social Science and the Springer Series in Computational Social Science and member of the advisory board of ING’s ThinkForward Initiative. He is former President of the European Social Simulation Association (Sept 2012/Sept 2016, since 2010 member of the Management Committee) and former Director of the NASP ESLS PhD Programme in Economic Sociology and Labour Studies (2015-2016).

Dr. William G. Kennedy, “Bill,” is continuing to learn in a third career, this time as an academic, a computational social scientist.

His first a career was in military service as a Naval Officer, starting with the Naval Academy, Naval PostGraduate School (as the first computer science student from the Naval Academy), and serving during the Cold War as part of the successful submarine-based nuclear deterrent. After six years of active duty service, he served over two decades in the Naval Reserves commanding three submarine and submarine-related reserve units and retiring after 30 years as a Navy Captain with several personal honors and awards.

His second career was in civilian public service: 10 years at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and 15 years with the Department of Energy. At the NRC he rose to be an advisor to the Executive Director for Operations and the authority on issues concerning the reliance on human operators for reactor safety, participating in two fly-away accident response teams. He left the NRC for a promotion and to lead, as technical director, the entrepreneurial effort to explore the use of light-water and accelerator technologies for the production of nuclear weapons materials. That work led to him becoming the senior policy officer responsible for strategic planning and Departmental performance commitments, leading development of the first several DOE strategic plans and formal performance agreements between the Secretary of Energy and the President.

Upon completion of doctoral research in Artificial Intelligence outside of his DOE work, he began his third career as a scientist. That started with a fully funded, three-year post-doctoral research position in cognitive robotics at the Naval Research Laboratory sponsored by the National Academy of Science and expanding his AI background with research in experimental Cognitive Science. Upon completion, he joined the Center for Social Complexity, part of the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study at George Mason University in 2008 where he is now the Senior Scientific Advisor. His research interests range from cognition at the individual level to models of millions of agents representing individual people. He is currently leading a multi-year project to characterize the reaction of the population of a mega-city to a nuclear WMD (weapon of mass destruction) event.

Dr. Kennedy holds a B.S. in mathematics from the U.S. Naval Academy, and Master of Science in Computer Science from the Naval PostGraduate School, and a Ph.D. in Information Technology from George Mason University and has a current security clearance. Dr. Kennedy is a member of Sigma Xi, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and a life member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. He is a STEM volunteer with the Senior Scientists and Engineers/AAAS Volunteer Program for K-12 science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education in the DC-area schools.