Social dynamics

Social interactions affect discovery processes

Our network of acquaintances determines how we get exposed to ideas, products, or cultural artworks (books, music, movies, etc.). Though this principle is part of our common sense, little is known about the specific pathways through which our …

Influential groups for seeding and sustaining nonlinear contagion in heterogeneous hypergraphs

Contagion phenomena are often the results of multibody interactions—such as superspreading events or social reinforcement—describable as hypergraphs. We develop an approximate master equation framework to study contagions on hypergraphs with a …

Simplicial contagion in temporal higher-order networks

Complex networks represent the natural backbone to study epidemic processes in populations of interacting individuals. Such a modeling framework, however, is naturally limited to pairwise interactions, making it less suitable to properly describe …

On the dual nature of adoption processes in complex networks

Adoption processes in socio-technological systems have been widely studied both empirically and theoretically. The way in which social norms, behaviors, and even items such as books, music or other commercial or technological product spread in a …

Modelling the social dynamics of contagion and discovery using dynamical processes on complex networks

Complex networks have been successfully used to describe the social structure on top of which many real-world social processes take place. In this thesis, I focus on the development of network models that aim at capturing the fundamental mechanisms …

Multilayer modeling of adoption dynamics in energy demand management

Due to the emergence of new technologies, the whole electricity system is undergoing transformations on a scale and pace never observed before. The decentralization of energy resources and the smart grid have forced utility services to rethink their …

Creative Connectivity Project - A network based approach to understand correlations between interdisciplinary group dynamics and creative performance

Creativity, technology and innovation are the main driving forces of our modern world and they often trigger behavioural and cultural changes in our societies. Several studies on creative collaborations emphasise the interconnection between the …

Simplicial models of social contagion

Complex networks have been successfully used to describe the spread of diseases in populations of interacting individuals. Conversely, pairwise interactions are often not enough to characterize social contagion processes such as opinion formation or …