Social Scientist Examines Diversity to Understand Our World

This ScienceLives article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

How does diversity arise? Does it make a system more productive? How does it impact the overall strength of a system? Does it make a system prone to large events? These are some of the questions Scott Page, professor of complex systems, political science, and economics at the University of Michigan is helping to answer.

Page's research focuses on the myriad roles that diversity plays in complex systems. Over his career, he has taken that research and challenged community groups, high schools, corporations, government agencies, Non-Governmental Organizations and university audiences to think about how diversity works.

He has written three books and many papers in disciplines including economics, political science, computer science, management, physics, public health, geography, urban planning, engineering and history.

He says one of the most rewarding aspects of his career is the opportunity to work with brilliant people. Here he answers the ScienceLives 10 questions.

Name: Scott E. Page Institution: University of Michigan Field of Study: Social Science, Complex Systems

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