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Kevin Zollman -

Kevin Zollman

Professor of Philosophy and Social and Decision Sciences and Director, Institute for Complex Social Dynamics | Dietrich College of Humanities & Social Sciences

Professor of Philosophy and Social and Decision Sciences and Director, Institute for Complex Social Dynamics


Expertise

Topics:  Social and Political Philosophy, Epistemology,, Philosophy of Biology, Decision and Game Theory, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Economics, Ethics

Kevin Zollman is the Herbert A. Simon Professor of Philosophy and Social and Decision Sciences and the director of the Institute for Complex Social Dynamics at Carnegie Mellon University. In addition to his primary appointment at Carnegie Mellon, Kevin is an associate fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh, and a visiting professor at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (part of Ludwig-Maximilians Universität).

Media Experience

What Investors Can Learn From the Best Poker Players  — The Wall Street Journal
How investors can sometimes make the same mistakes that poker players do.

Why Playing Poker, Chess or Bridge Can Make You a Better Investor  — The Street
How lessons from games like poker can teach you how to understand game theory and risk.

Video interviews on various game theory topcis  — Big Think
Recorded a series of short videos for the website BigThink on game theory topics ranging from nuclear war to parenting to poker.

a16z Podcast: The Macro and the Micro of Parenting  — Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
Fabrizio Zilibotti, Kevin Zollman, and Hanne Winarsky

The United Airlines Fiasco: How Game Theory Could Help  — NPR's Morning Edition
How airlines might use game theory to deal with oversold situations better.

The Mystery of Motivation  — Psychology Today
How incentives work and can sometimes backfire.

How Election 2016 Would Be Different With Ranked-Choice Voting  — Newsweek
How our system of voting can (and does) influence electoral outcomes.

Why Republicans Are Flip-Flopping On Their Endorsements  — The Atlantic
The game theory behind the Republican's attempts to distance themselves from Donald Trump.

Game Theory Secrets for Parents  — The Wall Street Journal
An article on using game theory to solve parenting dilemmas.

Not Safe For Funding: The N.S.F. and the Economics of Science  — The New Yorker
A piece about the politics and economics of science funding.

Crowds Are Not People, My Friend  — New York Magazine
A discussion about the relationship between individuals and groups. It contains an interview with a collaborator and former student, Conor Mayo-Wilson, about our research on learning in groups.

Education

Ph.D., Philosophy, University of California, Irvine
M.A., Philosophy, University of California, Irvine
B.S., Philosophy, Kansas State University, Manhattan

Spotlights

Links

Articles

How to End International Tax Competition  —  New York Times

Why both Trump and Cruz can claim to represent the majority of Republicans  —  Los Angeles Times

Partial honesty in a hummingbird polymorphism provides evidence for a hybrid equilibrium  —  ctbergstrom

Exploring the importance of stochasticity to hybrid equilibria in a discrete signaling game  —  Pub Med

Academic Journals, Incentives, and the Quality of Peer Review: A Model  —  Cambridge University Press

Explaining costly religious practices: credibility enhancing displays and signaling theories  —  National Library of Medicine

Videos