Aaron Clauset
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Aaron Clauset is an American
computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...
who works in the areas of
Network Science Network science is an academic field which studies complex networks such as telecommunication networks, computer networks, biological networks, Cognitive network, cognitive and semantic networks, and social networks, considering distinct eleme ...
,
Machine Learning Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...
, and
Complex Systems A complex system is a system composed of many components that may interact with one another. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...
. He is currently a professor of
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
at the
University of Colorado Boulder The University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder, CU, or Colorado) is a public research university in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state, it is the flagship university of the University o ...
and is external faculty at 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, inc ...
.


Education

Clauset completed his undergraduate studies in
physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...
and computer science at
Haverford College Haverford College ( ) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States. It was founded as a men's college in 1833 by members of the Religious Society of Fr ...
in 2001.Curriculum vitae
retrieved 2024-06-04.
He earned his Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2006 from the
University of New Mexico The University of New Mexico (UNM; ) is a public research university in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States. Founded in 1889 by the New Mexico Territorial Legislature, it is the state's second oldest university, a flagship university in th ...
under the supervision of
Cristopher Moore Cristopher David Moore, known as Cris Moore, (born March 12, 1968, in New Brunswick, New Jersey)Curriculum vitae< ...
. He was then an Omidyar Fellow at 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, inc ...
until 2010.


Career

In 2010, he joined the University of Colorado Boulder as an assistant professor, with primary appointments in the Computer Science Department and the BioFrontiers Institute, an interdisciplinary institute focused on quantitative systems biology. He joined the founding editorial board of
Science Advances ''Science Advances'' is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary open-access scientific journal established in early 2015 and published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The journal's scope includes all areas of science. Hist ...
as an Associate Editor in 2014, and became the Deputy Editor responsible for social and interdisciplinary sciences in 2017. At the University of Colorado Boulder, he was awarded tenure and promoted to associate professor in 2018, and promoted to full professor in 2022. Clauset is best known for work done with
Cosma Shalizi Cosma Rohilla Shalizi (born February 28, 1974) is an associate professor in the Department of Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Life Cosma Rohilla Shalizi is of Indian Tamil, Afghan (Rohilla) and Italian heritage and was ...
and
Mark Newman Mark Newman is a British physicist and Anatol Rapoport Distinguished University Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan, as well as an external faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute. He is known for his fundamental contributions to ...
in 2009 on developing rigorous statistics tests for the presence of a
power law In statistics, a power law is a Function (mathematics), functional relationship between two quantities, where a Relative change and difference, relative change in one quantity results in a relative change in the other quantity proportional to the ...
pattern in empirical data, and for showing that many distributions that were claimed to be power laws actually were not. In 2019, he used these techniques to show that most real-world networks do not exhibit the predicted power-law degree distribution of the popular
scale-free network A scale-free network is a network whose degree distribution follows a power law, at least asymptotically. That is, the fraction ''P''(''k'') of nodes in the network having ''k'' connections to other nodes goes for large values of ''k'' as : P( ...
model in
network science Network science is an academic field which studies complex networks such as telecommunication networks, computer networks, biological networks, Cognitive network, cognitive and semantic networks, and social networks, considering distinct eleme ...
. He is also known for his work on developing algorithms for detecting
community structure In the study of complex networks, a network is said to have community structure if the nodes of the network can be easily grouped into (potentially overlapping) sets of nodes such that each set of nodes is densely connected internally. In the par ...
in
complex networks Complex Networks is an American media and entertainment company for youth culture, based in New York City. It was founded as a bi-monthly magazine, ''Complex'', by fashion designer Marc Eckō. Complex Networks reports on popular and emerging ...
, particularly a model of
hierarchical clustering In data mining and statistics, hierarchical clustering (also called hierarchical cluster analysis or HCA) is a method of cluster analysis that seeks to build a hierarchy of clusters. Strategies for hierarchical clustering generally fall into two ...
in networks developed with
Cristopher Moore Cristopher David Moore, known as Cris Moore, (born March 12, 1968, in New Brunswick, New Jersey)Curriculum vitae< ...
and
Mark Newman Mark Newman is a British physicist and Anatol Rapoport Distinguished University Professor of Physics at the University of Michigan, as well as an external faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute. He is known for his fundamental contributions to ...
. In other work, Clauset is known for his specific discovery, with Maxwell Young and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch, that the frequency and severity of terrorist events worldwide follows a power-law distribution. This discovery was summarized by
Nate Silver Nathaniel Read Silver (born January 13, 1978) is an American statistician, political analyst, author, sports gambler, and poker player who Sabermetrics, analyzes baseball, basketball and Psephology, elections. He is the founder of ''FiveThirty ...
in his popular science book '' The Signal and the Noise'' and discussed by
Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychology, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguistics, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psycholo ...
in his controversial book '' Better Angels of our Nature''. Since 2015, Clauset has been active in the
metascience Metascience (also known as meta-research) is the use of scientific methodology to study science itself. Metascience seeks to increase the quality of scientific research while reducing inefficiency. It is also known as "research on research" and ...
community, contributing a number of studies of scientific careers, and the role of prestige in shaping productivity, prominence, attrition, and the spread of ideas. In January 2020, Clauset's work on
scale-free network A scale-free network is a network whose degree distribution follows a power law, at least asymptotically. That is, the fraction ''P''(''k'') of nodes in the network having ''k'' connections to other nodes goes for large values of ''k'' as : P( ...
s and the distribution of terrorist events garnered public attention after two of his papers were cited in the blog of British political advisor
Dominic Cummings Dominic Mckenzie Cummings (born 25 November 1971) is a British political strategist who served as Chief Adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson from 24 July 2019 until he resigned on 13 November 2020. From 2007 to 2014, he was a speci ...
. The blog post was released as part of an advertisement searching for "data scientists, project managers, policy experts, assorted weirdos", with Clauset's papers being cited as examples of work potential candidates should be aware of for use in public policy. In response, Clauset stated that the "paper on scale-free networks is not directly relevant to government policy … Cummings is using our paper as an example of using careful statistical and computational analyses of large and diverse data sets to reassess ideas that may be accepted as conventional wisdom." Clauset added that "in many cases, we don’t understand causality well enough to formulate a policy that will not do more damage than good."


Awards and honors

In 2015, Clauset received a prestigious
CAREER Award The National Science Foundation CAREER award is the most prestigious award presented by the National Science Foundation (NSF) of the United States Federal Government to support junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through rese ...
from the
National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...
to develop and evaluate new methods for characterizing the structure of networks. In 2016, Clauset received the Erdös-Rényi Prize in Network Science from the Network Science Society for his contributions to the study of network structure, including Internet mapping, inference of missing links, and community structure, and for his provocative analyses of human conflicts and social stratification. In 2021, a paper he coauthored on "The unequal impact of parenthood in academia" was awarded the "Paper of the Year" recognition by the International Society for Scientometrics and Informetrics (ISSI), and in 2023, he was named a Fellow of the Network Science Society.


Personal life

Aaron Clauset was a contestant on the fourth season of the NBC reality television show '' Average Joe: The Joe Strikes Back'', which aired in 2005. From 2002 to 2016, he wrote a blog ''Structure+Strangeness'' on science, complex systems, and computation.


Selected publications

*. *. *. *. *. *. *. *.


References


External links


Home page
at the Santa Fe Institute
Citations
in Google Scholar {{DEFAULTSORT:Clauset, aaron Living people American computer scientists Haverford College alumni University of New Mexico alumni University of Colorado Boulder faculty Science bloggers 21st-century science writers Santa Fe Institute people Year of birth missing (living people) American network scientists