NetSE: Medium: Robust Socio-Technological Networks: An Inter-Disciplinary Approach to Theoretical Foundation and Experimentation

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Networks stand at the center of our society, including social networks in virtual online space and technology networks among communication devices. Making socio-technological networks robust is becoming a paramount concern for national security, disaster relief, and economic stability. This project brings together a truly inter-disciplinary team to develop the fundamental research methodologies and perform large-scale human subject experimentations towards this goal. Intellectual Merit: (1) Developing Foundational Tools for Robust Networking. We draw from a suite of mathematical and statistical tools on two driving applications: (i) robustness against shocks, from the angles of social structures, policy influence, and communication recovery, and (ii) topology's impact on information value and propagation. (2) Interacting Across Disciplinary Boundaries. This team consists of four faculty members from three departments: Electrical Engineering, Sociology, and Political Science. Collectively the researchers draw upon expertise ranging from large-scale, social-network-based human behavior study to stochastic optimization over heterogeneous communication devices. (3) Bridging Theory-Practice Gap. A major bottleneck to social network study is the lack of an experimental testbed involving both innovative research agenda and human subjects. There are two sets of unique experimental platforms developed by the team: Online Gaming Community and Sharing Mart. Broader Impacts. In addition to innovations in curriculum development across three departments, this team also actively reaches out to a variety of communities, from Non-Government-Organizations to high school students and online gamers, from major companies in the communication networking sector to undergraduates interested in the intersection between social sciences and engineering.