Christopher X J. Jensen
Professor, Pratt Institute

Rhett Bradbury’s Master’s Thesis explores how gaming can foster political leadership

Posted 01 May 2013 / 0

Rhett Bradbury has been a crucial member of Envirolutions over the past two years. Our only graduate student member, Rhett started coming to club meetings during his first semester at Pratt. Rhett’s skills as a graphic designer have had a profound effect on how Envirolutions has communicated with the rest of the campus: his posters, logos, and other visual Read More

A Major Post, Mentoring, Political Science

NPR piece suggests that economics are pushing us towards nutrient recycling

Posted 10 Apr 2013 / 0

NPR All Things Considered “Cities Turn Sewage Into ‘Black Gold’ For Local Farms” This is a really interesting piece because it suggests that the costs associated with properly disposing of human waste are beginning to incentivize municipalities to repurpose this waste as fertilizer. As this feature indicates, landfilling and (even worse) incineration have been in Read More

A Minor Post, Closed Loop Systems, Economic sustainability, Pollution, Radio & Podcasts, Sustainability, Sustainable Agriculture

Envirolutions asks the Pratt community to identify where there is “room for improvement”

Posted 29 Mar 2013 / 0

During this year’s Green Week celebration, Envirolutions club members brought their Room for Improvement campaign to the campus, asking members of the Pratt community to identify where the campus has the most “room to improve” in terms of sustainability. Two enticements incentivized participation: those who filled out a survey could grab a snack and pick out their own Envirolutions button to Read More

A Major Post, Envirolutions, Resource Consumption, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy

A spatial version of the Traveler’s Dilemma allows cooperation to persist

Posted 23 Mar 2013 / 0

PLos ONE “Evolution of Cooperation in Spatial Traveler’s Dilemma Game“

A Minor Post, Cooperation, Game Theory, Reciprocity, Spatially Explicit Modeling

My review of Railsback and Grimm’s “Agent-based and individual-based modeling” textbook published in Ecology

Posted 22 Mar 2013 / 2

I am excited by the recent publication of my review of Agent-based and individual-based modeling: a practical introduction in the January issue of Ecology. The review, entitled “Individual-based modeling for the masses“, lauds this valuable textbook designed to support individual-based modeling courses. I expect the combination of this text and the very valuable NetLogo modeling Read More

A Major Post, Ecological Modeling, Individual-based Models, My publications, Spatially Explicit Modeling

Just in case you missed it the first ten times: E.O. Wilson likes group selection, Jerry Coyne does not

Posted 16 Mar 2013 / 1

Why Evolution is True “E. O. Wilson mistakenly touts group selection (again) as a key factor in human evolution“

A Minor Post, Cooperation, Evolution, Group Selection, Kin Selection, Reciprocity

Allen MacNeill predicts resolution of Ev-Coop debates

Posted 16 Mar 2013 / 0

The Cornell Daily Sun “Darwin Days Lecture: “Can Cooperation Evolve by Natural Selection?”“

A Minor Post, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Group Selection, Kin Selection

Martin Nowak to lecture on the compatibility of god and the evolutionary process

Posted 16 Mar 2013 / 0

College of the Holy Cross “Harvard Scientist to Lecture at Holy Cross on God and Evolution” It is amazing to hear someone like Nowak say “God uses evolution to unfold the living world around us”. This is radical stuff for a theorist to say, as we generally try to understand properties and dynamics of systems Read More

A Minor Post, Cooperation, Evolution, Religion

Understanding kin selection and reciprocity when strategies are culturally propagated

Posted 16 Mar 2013 / 0

arXiv “Self-Organization Promotes the Evolution of Cooperation with Cultural Propagation“

A Minor Post, Cooperation, Cultural Evolution, Evolutionary Modeling, Game Theory, Kin Selection, Reciprocity

Envirolutions club launches its “Room for Improvement” campaign

Posted 21 Feb 2013 / 0

This week, students in Pratt’s Envirolutions club launched their newest campaign for on-campus sustainability. Called “Room for Improvement”, the campaign seeks to lower the environmental footprint of the school caused by resource consumption. The posters that advertise the campaign are themed around iconic “warning” posters: Envirolutions will also be tabling during Green Week on Thursday, March 28th to Read More

A Major Post, Envirolutions, Pratt Institute, Sustainability, Sustainable Energy