Fotini Christia
Ford International Professor in the Social Sciences, Department of Political Science and Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS)
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Fotini Christia is the Ford International Professor in the Social Sciences at MIT, with appointments in the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS) and Department of Political Science. She directs the Sociotechnical Systems Research Center (SSRC) within IDSS. Christia’s research looks at how embattled societies, and their subunits, shape and are shaped by conflict in the Muslim world. She focuses on how cooperation emerges in violently contested environments, and what role identity, material incentives, networks, and institutions play in that process. She is presently using cellphone and social media data in ongoing research on refugee return in Syria, and on gender-based violence in Egypt during Covid-19. Christia received her PhD in public policy at Harvard University, and from Columbia University, earned her MA in international affairs and BA in economics and operations research. She has authored “Alliance Formation in Civil War” (Cambridge University Press, 2012), as well as numerous articles and op-eds.
Selected Publications
- “Scalable Equilibrium Computation in Multi-agent Influence Games on Networks,” in Proceedings of the 35th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-21), (with Michael Curry, Constantinos Daskalakis, Erik Demaine, John P. Dickerson, Mohammad Taghi Hajiaghayi, Adam Hesterberg, Marina Knittel, and Aidan Milliff).
- “Tests for Network Cascades via Branching Processes,” in IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering, vol. 7, no. 4, pp. 2693-2701, 1 Oct.-Dec. 2020, doi: 10.1109/TNSE.2020.2981327. (With Paolo Bertolotti and Ali Jadbabaei)
- “State Capacity Redux: Integrating Classical and Experimental Contributions to an Enduring Debate,”Annual Review of Political Science (ARPS), Vol. 21, 2018. (With Elissa Berwick)
Media
March 23, 2021: MIT News, 3 Questions: Artificial intelligence for health care equity
October 14, 2020: MIT News, Fotini Christia named director of the Sociotechnical Systems Research Center
April 2, 2020: MIT News, 3 Questions: Fotini Christia on new deal-making in Afghanistan
October 14, 2016: MIT News, 3Q: Fotini Christia and Ali Jadbabaie on researching the dynamics of sociopolitcal change
April 7, 2016: MIT News, Using data from social networks to understand and improve systems
April 23, 2015: MIT News, Political scientist Fotini Christia receives Andrew Carnegie Fellowship
March 4, 2015: MIT News, Studying conflict from the ground up
August 2, 2013: MIT News, Empowering women in Afghanistan
November 2, 2012: MIT News, How civil wars evolve
September 14, 2012: MIT News, 3 Questions: Violence and protests in the Muslim world
December 9, 2011: MIT News, Bridging the divide
May 3, 2011: MIT News, 3 Questions: Fotini Christia on the war in Afghanistan