100 word bio
Michael Szell is postdoctoral fellow at SENSEable City Laboratory (MIT) since 2012. His background is in Technical Mathematics (M.Sc., Vienna University of Technology) and in Physics (Ph.D., University of Vienna). His research interests cover the analysis and modeling of complex socio-economic systems, social dynamics and mobility, and social networks from a statistical physics viewpoint. Michael's Ph.D. work focused on the analysis of social networks and collective behavior between players of his Massive Multiplayer Online Game "Pardus", www.pardus.at. At SENSEable City Lab he is involved in projects focusing on social networks and human behavior in cities.
Research interests
- Analysis, modeling of structure, evolution, and processes on socio-economic networks
- Data mining and statistical physics of societies, particularly in online games and cities
- Quantification of human behavior, Behavioral economics, Evolutionary game theory
Education
| 2012 / 03 |  | Ph.D. in Physics, University of Vienna Ph.D. Thesis
Advisors: Stefan Thurner, Christoph Dellago |
| 2007 / 10 |  | M.Sc. in Technical Mathematics with focus on computer science, Vienna University of Technology M.Sc. Thesis |
Employment
| present 2012 / 04 |  | Postdoctoral research fellow, SENSEable City Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| 2011 / 12 2009 / 01 |  | Research assistant, Section for Science of Complex Systems, Medical University of Vienna |
| present 2006 / 09 | Founder and manager of Bayer & Szell OG | |
| present 2004 / 07 |  | Developer and administrator of the Massive Multiplayer Online Game Pardus |
Hobbies
- Badminton, Squash, Tennis
- Playing the piano
- Programming, web development
- Hiking, cycling