I’m a Data Scientist and PhD Student in Technology and Social Behavior, a joint program in computer science and communication at Northwestern University. My research is supervised by Professor Ágnes Horvát and examines the ways in which techniques from machine learning, complex networks analysis and computational social science can be harnessed for social innovation. My work is deeply informed by my upbringing in Zimbabwe against a backdrop of economic collapse,¹ persistent epidemics,^{2, 3, 4} conflicts over land and natural resources,⁵ and a constant yearning for peace and prosperity. Some examples of data science for social innovation projects that I have recently worked on include early detection of financial investments that are likely to default,⁶ investigating how climate change relates to social upheaval in agro-pastoral regimes,⁷ estimating the outcomes of plebiscites,⁸ and finding efficient pathways to build stable and lasting peace.⁹ The core premise of my work has broad implications for how modern civilisations can effectively coordinate their responses and communication strategies in high-stakes real-world challenges.

Recent Updates

• September, 2020: I will be presenting our work on Inferring Irrational Lending Behaviour from Implicit Herding Networks at the International School and Conference on Network Science (NetSci), online.

• July, 2020: I presented our work on Efficient Pathways for Peace Accords Implementation at the 6th International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2), online.

• June, 2020: I presented our work on Harnessing Collective Intelligence in P2P Lending at the ACM Collective Intelligence Conference, online.