Institute for
Mathematical Behavioral Sciences

IMBS NEWS

2011
		Doug White, Professor of Anthropology and MBS graduate students Giorgio Gosti and Tolga Oztan, gave three talks at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences along with a two-week open seminar and Working Group on Causal graphs in the Social Sciences (June 2011). They continue with a similar two-week program at the Santa Fe Institute in late summer.
		*Kimberly A. Jameson, Associate Project Scientist, has been awarded a 2011-13 Faculty Initiative Grant from the Pacific Rim Research Program for her proposal, "Investigating concept formation and the linguistic processing of natural categories across Pacific Rim ethnolinguistic groups"
		*Professor A. Kimball Romney is the winner of $5000 in an InnoCentive Challenge contest. InnoCentive is a web site that posts Prizes for solving a problem a company or organization is attempting to solve. The subject of the Challenge was Thresholds for Perception of Color Differences. The challenge was to devise a method to correlate quantitative physical measurements of surface reflectance with human perception of the color appearance of that surface.
		*Simon Levin, Princeton, Professof Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton has been awarded the Distinguished Alumnus of the Year in the College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences.
2010
		*Jeffrey Barrett, logic & philosophy of science professor and department chair, has been awarded the title of Chancellor's Fellow, effective through June 30, 2012. * Yen-Sheng Chiang, Assistant Professor of Sociology, is the reciepient of the 2009-10 Social Science Assistant Professor Research Award for Human Altruism and the perception of Social distance. * Simon Levin, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton, has been awarded the Margalef Prize in Ecology and Environmental Sciences for his fundamental contributions in theoretical ecology, particularly concerning spatial and temporal heterogeneity, and for his ground-breaking research on integrating different scales in understanding ecological processes. For more information visit: Margalef Prize.
		* Simon Levin has received the Eminent Ecologist Award (2010) from the Ecological Society of America ( http://www.esa.org/ ) .  This is the most prestigious award granted by the ESA, in recognition of a lifetime of distinguished accomplishments in ecology and the biological sciences.
2009
		*  Brendan Purdy, MBS Graduate Student, and Yo-Long Lin, Economic Graduate Student. are co-recipients of the Jean-Claude Falmagne 2009 Dissertation Award for the best dissertation in the School of Social Sciences. *  Geoffrey Iverson, Professor of Cognitive Sciences, receives the 2009 "Best Paper Award" from the Society for Mathematical Pshcyholgy. the honor recognizes his research in theoretical psychophysics, the study of how sensory stimuli - such as sound and sight - are described in physical terms. *  Donald Saari, Director, IMBS and Distinguished Professor of Economics and Mathematics. Elected as SIAM fellow, member of the Finnish Academy of Sciences & Letters.
2008
		* Elliott Wagner, Graduate Student, Logic and Philosophy of Science. Awarded for Poster Session , 2008, Elliott Wagner has received an award for the best graduate student poster at the IMBS poster session.
		*Mark Steyvers, 2008 Best Paper Award at Cognitive Science Conference. Category: Computational Modeling of High-Level Cognition.
		*  Laurent Tambayong, MBS Graduate Student, was selected to receive a Social Sciences Dissertation Fellowship for 08-09
		* Hao Jia and James Bono,  Graduate Students James Bono and Hao Jia are the recipients of the inaugural 2008 Jean-Claude Falmagne Dissertation Award for the best PhD dissertation. The award of $1,000 is given to the dissertation that best uses mathematics to develop conceptual advances for issues coming from the social and behavioral sciences. Going beyond the use of mathematics for computational purposes, the intent is to award a dissertation that uses concepts from mathematics to reach the new conclusions
		* Douglas R. White, Douglas White, anthropology professor and IMBS member, has been named chair of the Scientific Committee for France's Reseau National des Systemes Complexes (RNSC), the society that oversees a number of French research institutions focused on the study of complex systems. A member of the UC Irvine faculty since 1976, White has been widely recognized for his research on social networks and complex systems. He currently serves on the Santa Fe Institute's complexity research external faculty.   In June, White will be a visiting professor in the sociology department of Eidgenvssische Technische Hochschule (ETH) University in Zurich where he will work with the complexity research Competence Center for Coping with Crisis in Socio-Economic Systems.
		* Rein Taagepera, University of California at Irvine and Tartu University, Estonia , has been awarded the Skytte Prize for his profound analysis of the function of electoral systems in representative democracy. The prize winner is presented in Svenska Dagbladet, Understreckaren, April 1, 2008. Professor Taagepera will receive the prize at a solemn ceremony at Uppsala University on Saturday Sept 27. At this occasion he will also give his prize lecture on a topic to be announced later. The prize winner also receives 500,000 Swedish crowns (approximately 75,000 US Dollars) in recognition by the Foundation for the most valuable contribution to political science. Research in all areas of the discipline are considered: political theory, comparative politics, public administration and international relations. More
2007
		* Rui J. P. de Figueiredo, electrical engineering and computer science and mathematics research professor at UC Irvine, has been elected as a foreign member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (RANS) U.S. Section and was awarded the academy's George V. Chilingar Medal of Honor for his important contributions to science and engineering. A UCI faculty member since 1990, de Figueiredo has been instrumental in strengthening the presence of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering's (IEEE) Circuits and Systems Society in Russia and Eastern Europe.
		* Hongkai Zhao receives the 2007 Feng Kang Prize for Scientific Computing. Since 1995, the Feng Kang Prize of Scientific Computing has honored young Chinese scientists in China and abroad for their significant contributions in the broad areas of scientific computing every other year.The award is being managed by the Institute of Computational Mathematics and Scientific/Engineering Computing, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Winners are rewarded with a premium of 20,000 Chinese Yuan each. The Feng Kang Prize is dedicated to the memory of the late Professor Feng Kang, the founder and pioneer of Chinese computational mathematics. He was a member of Chinese Academy of Sciences, a professor and the founding director of the Computing Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. His work on sympletic methods was awarded the First Prize of National Natural Science Award of China.
		* Amer Aladhadh (Economics, MBS) and Laurent Tambayong (MBS) were awarded expense-paid awards to attend the Complexity Summer School of the Paris-Ile de France Complex Systems Institute, and Professor Doug White was invited as one of the faculty lecturers, July-August 2007.
		* Andrew Noymer, Assistant Professor of Sociology, received  2007-2008 Social Assistant Professor Research Award on the paper "Chronic Disease, Nutrition, and Race in the Nineteenth Century: tuberculosis and Spyhilis in the Union Army in the Civil War".
		* Douglas R. White, Professor of Anthropology, Awarded Outstanding Article Publication from the ASA  Section on Economic Sociology for his paper "Network Dynamics and Field Evolution: The Growth of Interorganizational Collaboration in the Life Sciences" with Co-Authors.
		* Distinguished Research Professor R. Duncan Luce, Cognitive Sciences and Economics, receives 2007 Lauds & Laurels Recipients in Social Sciences.
		* Distinguished Professor R. Duncan Luce, Cognitive Sciences and Economics, received Honorary Doctorate of Mathematics from The University of Waterloo, Canada
		* Emeritus Professor Kenneth Small, Economics, received 2007 Lauds & Laurels Award.
		* Hao "Audrey" Fang, Economics graduate student, received 2007 Sanli Pastore & Hill Excellence in writing award.
2006
		* Professor L. Robin Keller, Operations and Decision Technologies, Awarded  "The George E. Kimball Medal".
		* Professor Tarow Indow, Cognitive Sciences, received International Award for Distinguished Research.
		* Hao Jia, UCI Economics graduate student, receives Sanli Paper Award
		* Assistant Professor Natalia Komarova, Mathematics, received Distinguished Assistant Professor Award for Research 2006-2007
		* Lingfang (Ivy) Li, Economics, graduate student, received 2006 Phi Beta Kappa International Student Scholarship Award
		* Lingfang (Ivy) Li, Economics, graduate student, Awarded 2006 Chinese Govenment Award for Outstanding Self-financed Students Abroad
		* Lingfang (Ivy) Li, Economics, graduate student, received 2006 Phi Beta Kappa International Student Scholarship award.
		* Professor Linton Freeman, Sociology, received 2006 James S. Coleman Distinguished Career Award in Mathematical Sociology.
2005
		* Professor Jean-Claude Falmagne, received 2005 Innovation Award for his significant and pioneering work in knowledge assessment systems for teaching. Innovation Awards are presented to the top UCI innovators based on the significance, novelty and creativity of their technologies.
		* Professor Jean-Claude Falmagne, received  the 2005  Honorary Doctorate of the Karl-Franzens-Universitat Graz.
		* Professor Richard Palais, Mathematics, awarded first place in the illustration category of the National Science Foundation/Science 2006 Visualization Challenge
		* Professor Bernard N. Grofman, Political Science, received 2005-2006 Distinguished Faculty Award for Research.
		* Assistant Professor Natalia Komarova, Mathematics, received "Prize for the Promise" is an award given to young women demonstrating exceptional ability, leadership, and vision in their respective endeavors.
2004
		* Donald Saari, Director, IMBS and Distinguished Professor of Economics and Mathematics. Elected to American Academy of Art Sciences.
		* Professor Ken Small receives the 2004 Distinguished Transportation Research Award
		*  Mark Steyvers Awarded 2004 Young Investigator Award by SEP in Experimental Psychology
		* Professor R. Duncan Luce - Recipient of the 2004 Norman Anderson Award
		* Douglas White Awarded Outstanding Article Publication from the ASA Mathematical Sociology Section, 2004.  With James Moody, "Social Cohesion and Embeddedness: A Hierarchical Concept of Social Groups. American Sociological Review 68(1):1-25
		* Don Saari elected to American Academy of Arts Sciences. Donald Saari is Distinguished Professor of Economics and Mathematics. Saari is recognized for his important contributions to the social sciences. His research employs mathematical models to analyze a wide variety of social and economic phenomena, politics, markets and intraorganizational behavior. Through his discoveries on how people vote, he has emerged as a leading critic of the American electoral process. His work in mathematical economics has revealed a new understanding of economic principles such as incentive, supply and demand. Among his previous honors is election in 2001 to the National Academy of Sciences.
2003
		* Professor R. Duncan Luce receives 2003 National Medal of Science

QUOTES
           
"People's behavior is simple, but in the aggregate it leads to a complex system, a system bordering on chaos." - Arthur De Vany, Professor Emeritus of economics and member of the Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Sciences, applying the theory of chaotic systems to consumers' behavior toward film. Los Angeles Times , July 2, 2006.

EVENTS

November 2, 2005: A. Kimball Romney is honored on his 80th Birthday - See Photos

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