This is a Virtual Science Club event and reserved for members of the Emergence Circle and Complexity Society.

About this talk: Over the last few decades, the divide between the two major political parties in the United States has deepened. Studies of Congressional voting patterns show that politicians take increasingly polarized positions, and that those positions drift farther and farther apart over time. Not voters, though. Since the 1960s, voters have stayed in the middle, usually preferring centrist or moderate positions to the extremes. For this Virtual Science Club, Vicky will give an overview of a new model that describes why politicians become more polarized even as their constituents remain steadfast in the middle.

About the speaker: Vicky Chuqiao Yang is a Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow, an Omidyar Fellow, and the Peters Hurst Scholar at the Santa Fe Institute. Her research is centered around understanding complex phenomena of the human society using mathematical tools. Vicky's recent interests are in the effects of political ignorance in elections and collaboration in urban productivity. Through studying these problems, she wants to help people make sense of the increasingly complex society they live in. To achieve this goal, she works in transdisciplinary teams, often with social scientists, physicists, and mathematicians. Her approach involves two aspects: building mechanistic models from first principles, and using real-world datasets to inform and validate these models. Vicky received a Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University. She holds an M.S. in applied mathematics from Northwestern University, and dual-major B.S. in Physics and Mathematical Sciences from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

September 16, 2020

Polarization in the American Political System

Online Discussion