Leadership

  • Alex “Sandy” Pentland

    Alex “Sandy” Pentland

    Founding Faculty Director

    Alex “Sandy” Pentland is founding faculty director of the MIT Connection Science Research Initiative, which uses network science to access and change real-world human behavior.  He is a Stanford… Read More

  • Hossein Rahnama

    Hossein Rahnama

    Faculty Lead

    Hossein Rahnama is a computer scientist and an academic entrepreneur. As a visiting professor at the MIT Media Lab and professor at Ryerson University, where he co-founded Ryerson DMZ,… Read More

  • Thomas Hardjono

    Thomas Hardjono

    Technology Officer

    Thomas Hardjono is the CTO of Connection Science and Engineering. He leads technical projects and initiatives around identity, security and data privacy, and engages industry partners and sponsors on… Read More

  • Wilson D’Souza

    Wilson D’Souza

    Senior Founding MIT Connection Science Fellow

    Wilson D’Souza is Senior Founding MIT Connection Science Fellow and founding member and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Akoya, a startup transforming the way consumers share their data by providing… Read More

PhD Students

  • Bernardo Garcia Bulle Bueno

    Bernardo Garcia Bulle Bueno

    Ph.D. Candidate

    My research goal is to understand statistics and probability with more depth, and then combine the learnings with engineering to make relevant contributions to society. Right now my work… Read More

  • Robert Mahari

    Robert Mahari

    Ph.D Candidate

    Robert is pursuing a joint JD-PhD degree at Harvard Law School and the MIT Media Lab. His work focuses on Computational Law: leveraging computation to analyze, improve, and extend… Read More

  • Shayne Longpre

    Shayne Longpre

    Ph.D. Candidate

    Shayne is a PhD Candidate at MIT. His research focuses on the intersection of AI and policy: responsibly training, evaluating, and governing general-purpose AI systems. He leads the Data… Read More

  • Tobin South

    Tobin South

    Ph.D. Candidate

    Tobin is a Ph.D. student in Prof. Alex 'Sandy' Pentland's Human Dynamics group at the MIT Media Lab. His research lies at the intersection of data, privacy, and society;… Read More

Research Scientists

  • Hend Alrasheed

    Hend Alrasheed

    Research Scientist

    Hend Alrasheed is an associate professor at the College of Computer and Information Sciences at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She received her B.S. and M.S. in… Read More

  • Mohsen Bahrami

    Mohsen Bahrami

    Research Scientist

    Mohsen Bahrami is a postdoctoral associate in the Connection Science group at MIT. His research field is computational social science and he has been working on data driven behavioral analytics to… Read More

  • Shahar Somin

    Shahar Somin

    Postdoctoral Associate

    Shahar Somin, is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Human Dynamics Group, at the MIT Media Lab, working with Professor Alex ‘Sandy’ Pentland. Shahar’s research concentrates on network theory, and… Read More

Recent Graduates

  • Dana Calacci

    Dana Calacci

    Recent Graduate

    Dr. Dana Calacci studies the socio-technical and legal impacts of datafication and AI on communities, especially worker groups. Through collaborations like the Workers Algorithm Observatory, which she helps direct,… Read More

  • Isabella Loaiza

    Isabella Loaiza

    Recent Graduate

    Isabella is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the MIT Sloan Management School. As a Computational Social Scientist, she is dedicated to shaping a more equitable future of work. Her research… Read More

  • Keeley Erhardt

    Keeley Erhardt

    Recent Graduate

    Keeley is a PhD student at MIT and has industry experience at Meta, Apple, Google, and several startups. Her research focuses on building machine learning models and statistical approaches… Read More

  • Takahiro Yabe

    Takahiro Yabe

    Recent Graduates

    Takahiro Yabe is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Center for Urban Science and Progress, New York University.  Previously between 2021 and 2023, he was a Postdoctoral Associate at… Read More

  • Ziv Epstein

    Ziv Epstein

    Recent Graduate

    Ziv Epstein (he/him) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, where he works with Michael Bernstein, and Johan Ugander. In his research, Ziv seeks to… Read More

Faculty & Staff

  • Michiel Bakker

    Michiel Bakker

    Connection Science Affiliated Faculty

    Michiel is an MIT Computer Science PhD student and a research assistant in the Human Dynamics group at the MIT Media Lab, where he is supervised by Alex 'Sandy' Pentland. His research lies at the… Read More

  • Morgan Frank

    Morgan Frank

    Connection Science Affiliated Faculty

    Morgan Frank is an Assistant Professor at the School of Computing and Information at the University of Pittsburgh. Morgan is interested in the complexity of AI, the future of… Read More

Lecturers

  • Dazza Greenwood

    Dazza Greenwood

    Lecturer

    (Daniel) Dazza Greenwood is an entrepreneur, innovator and national thought on design and deployment of scalable, distributed Trust Network and other digital systems. Dazza heads the digital business systems… Read More

  • John Werner

    John Werner

    Senior Founding Connection Science Fellow

    Innovation is the disciplined creation of new knowledge.  At MIT, we believe that innovation occurs more frequently when individuals from diverse disciplines connect in new ways to help create… Read More

Connection Science Fellows

  • Anirban Basak

    Anirban Basak

    Connection Science Fellow

    Anirban is the Founder and CEO of FortifID. FortifID is a working commercial implementation of OPAL and its related concepts introduced in the MIT Trust :: Data book by Dr.… Read More

  • David Shrier

    David Shrier

    Senior Founding Connection Science Fellow

    David Shrier is a globally recognized authority on financial innovation, and teaches “Future Commerce“ at the MIT Media Lab (the first graduate fintech class in North America). He also… Read More

  • Dr. Jeremy Kepner

    Dr. Jeremy Kepner

    Visiting Scientist

    Dr. Jeremy Kepner is Head and Founder of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Supercomputing Center (LLSC), and also a Founder of the MIT-Air Force AI Accelerator. Lincoln Laboratory is a… Read More

  • Eduardo Castello

    Eduardo Castello

    Connection Science Fellow

    Dr. Eduardo Castello experience and interests comprise robotics, blockchain technology, and complex systems. Eduardo was a Marie Curie Fellow in the Human Dynamics (HD) group at the MIT Media Lab where he worked with Prof. Alex… Read More

  • Esteban Moro

    Esteban Moro

    Connection Science Faculty

    Esteban Moro is a Reseach Scientist in Connection Science, an associate professor at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in Spain, and a member of the Joint Institute UC3M Santander… Read More

  • Guy Fedorkow

    Guy Fedorkow

    Connection Science Fellow

    Guy C. Fedorkow received his BASc and MASc in Engineering Sciences at University of Toronto, and went on to develop both communications and high-throughput parallel computer architectures at Bolt,… Read More

  • Jeffrey N. Saviano

    Jeffrey N. Saviano

    Senior Founding Connection Science Fellow

    Jeff Saviano is the EY Global Tax Innovation Leader. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts Jeff is a Partner (Principal) with EY and a member of EY’s global innovation leadership team.… Read More

  • Rudina Seseri

    Rudina Seseri

    Connection Science Fellow

    Rudina Seseri, Founder and Managing Partner of Glasswing Ventures, is a pioneering force in AI, Frontier Technology, and enterprise SaaS, with 20 years of investing and operational leadership. She… Read More

  • Shlomit Wagman

    Shlomit Wagman

    Research Scientist

    Dr. Shlomit Wagman served as the Director-General of the Israel Money Laundering and Terror Financing Prohibition Authority (IMPA), a financial regulator and law enforcement agency, from 2016 to 2022,… Read More

  • Vinicius A. Brei

    Vinicius A. Brei

    Connection Science Fellow

    Vinicius Brei is a Research Affiliate and Connection Science Fellow at the MIT Media Lab, Chair Tramontina Eletrik Associate Professor of Marketing at the Federal University of Rio Grande… Read More