Nicholas Weller Department of Political Science School of International Relations University of Southern California dornsife.usc.edu/weller nwweller@gmail.com Employment and Affiliations Assistant Professor 2008 present Department of Political Science and School of International Relations University of Southern California Fellow, USC Caltech Center for the Study of Law and Politics, 2008 present Education Ph.D. Political Science University of California, San Diego, June 2008 B.A. Rice University, 1995-1999 Book Finding Pathways: Mixed-method research for studying causal mechanisms (with Jeb Barnes). Forthcoming in July 2014. Cambridge University Press. Articles [16] Pathway Analysis and the Search for Causal Mechanisms. Accepted. Sociological Methods and Research. (with Jeb Barnes) [15] Game-Theoretic Target Selection in Contagion-based Domains. 2014. The Computer Journal. (with Jason Tsai, Hanh Thanh, and Milind Tambe) [14] Income Taxation and the Validity of State Capacity Indicators. 2014. Journal of Public Policy. Vol. 34, Issue 1. (with Melissa Ziegler Rogers). [13] Knowledge and Networks: An experimental test of how network knowledge affects coordination. 2014. Social Networks. (with Daniel Enemark and Mathew D. McCubbins). Volume 36. January, pages 122 133 [12] Cheap, Easy or Connected: The Conditions for Creating Group Coordination" Forthcoming 2013. Southern California Law Review. Volume 86, Issue 3. (with Daniel Rodriguez and Mathew D. McCubbins) [11] Testing the Foundations of Quantal Response Equilibrium. 2013. Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling & Prediction. Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science. (with Mathew D. McCubbins and Mark Turner)
[10] Heuristic Techniques for Controlling Contagion 2012. Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Fall Symposium on Social Networks and Social Contagion. (with Milind Tambe and Jason Tsai) [9] Effects of Network Structure on Costly Coordination. 2012. Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Fall Symposium on Social Networks and Social Contagion. (with Mathew D. McCubbins) [8] The Theory of Minds Within the Theory of Games. 2012. Proceedings of the 2012 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence. (with Mathew D. McCubbins and Mark Turner) [7] The Mythology of Game Theory. 2012. Proceedings of the International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling & Prediction. Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Eds. Shanchieh Jay Yang, Ariel Greenberg and Mica Endsley. (with Mathew D. McCubbins and Mark Turner) [6] The Challenge of Flexible Intelligence for Models of Human Behavior. 2012. Association for Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Spring Symposium on Game Theory for Security, Sustainability and Health. AAI Technical Report. (with Mathew D. McCubbins and Mark Turner) [5] Diffusion in Direct Democracy: The Effect of Political Information on Proposals for Tax and Expenditure Limits in the U.S. States. 2011. State Politics and Policy Quarterly. Vol. 11, No. 3. pp. 348-368. (with Ellen Seljan) [4] Does more connectivity help groups to solve social problems? 2011. Proceedings of the ACM Conference of Electronic Commerce 2011. San Jose, CA. (with Daniel Enemark, Mathew D. McCubbins and Ramomohan Paturi) [3] Making Talk Cheap (and Problems Easy): How Political and Legal Institutions Can Facilitate Consensus, 2010. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. Vol. 7, Issue 10. p. 868-885. (with Cheryl Boudreau, Mathew D. McCubbins, and Daniel Rodriguez). [2] Trading Policy: Constituents and Party in U.S. Congressional Trade Voting. 2009. Public Choice. Volume 141, Issue 1, Page 87 [1] Connected Coordination: Network Structure and Group Coordination. 2009. American Politics Research. Vol. 37, No. 5. (with Mathew D. McCubbins and Ramomohan Paturi) Works in Progress Informing Collective Action: How Institutions that Create Information Networks can Facilitate Collective Action (with Daniel Enemark and Mathew McCubbins). Bad Connection: When a Denser Network Inhibits Coordination (with Daniel Enemark)
Cheap, Easy, Common, Connected and Omniscient: Understanding how institutions affect coordination and problem solving. (with Mathew McCubbins). Book manuscript being drafted. Grants and Awards Advancing Scholarship in Humanities and Social Sciences, $15,000, 2009-2010 Southern California Innovation Project Grant, $50,000, Principal Investigator, 2008-09 Peggy Quon Prize for the UCSD Political Science graduate student most likely to contribute to scientific study of politics, 2008 Graduate Dissertation Fellowship, Institute on Global Conflict & Cooperation, 2007 2008 UCSD Thurgood Marshall Graduate Fellowship, August 2003 June 2006 Talks and presentations 2014 Gods vs. Bugs: Understanding the effects of network knowledge. West Coast Experiments Conference. May. Invited talk 2014 The Organization of Non-State Actors: Varieties of Linkages between Structures and Agents. Special panel organized by One Earth Future at International Studies Association Meeting. Toronto, Canada. Invited paper/presentation. 2013 Cheap, Easy and Connected: Conditions for Collective Action. Claremont Graduate University. Invited talk. 2013 Consistent Inconsistency, Institute for Mathematical and Behavioral Sciences at University of California, Irvine. Invited talk. 2013 Network structure and collective action, Conference on Causal Inference in Political Networks. University of Chicago. May. Invited talk. 2013 Testing the foundations of quantal response equilibrium, International Conference on Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling and Prediction. April 2012 Effects of Network Structure on Costly Coordination. Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Fall Symposium. 2012 Coordination and Cooperation in Networks. Crowds and Populations Workshop, Los Angeles, CA. Invited talk. 2012 The Elements of Protest: Combining Coordination, Cooperation, and Communication in the Lab, paper prepared for presentation at American Political Science Association, New Orleans, LA 2012 The Theory of Minds Within the Theory of Games, International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Las Vegas, NV. 2011 Trusting Your Beliefs: Understanding beliefs and behavior in a trust game. Conference on Empirical Legal Studies, Northwestern University Law School. 2011 Coordinated Cooperation: The Effect of Network Structure on Coordination with Costly Actions. Political Networks Conference, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI. 2011 Does more connectivity help groups solve social problems? ACM Conference on Electronic Commerce. June. San Jose, CA. 2011 The Use of Knowledge in a Network: The importance of understanding actors information for network analysis and Selecting Pathway Cases in a World of Causal Complexity. Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, IL. 2010 Network Structure and Coordination. University of Houston. Invited talk.
2010 When do more connections help groups solve coordination problems? Workshop on Information in Networks, New York University, September, 2010. 2010 All Centrality is Local and Unintentional emobilization; American Political Science Association, September 2010. 2010 Network Structure and Coordination, Center for Law, Economics and Organization, USC Law School. Invited talk. 2009 Moral Hazard in Campaigns: Do political candidates keep hiring their consultants, Conference on Empirical Legal Studies 2009 Political Economy of Economic Reforms. Korea Development Institute, Seoul Korea, June 2009. 2009 Network Structure and Coordination, Southern California Experiments in Political Science Conference, San Diego, California 2009 Diffusion of State Tax and Expenditure Limits (with Ellen Moule), State Politics and Policy Conference. May 2009. 2009 Good Edge, Bad Edge: Effect of Network Structure on Coordination (with Daniel Enemark, Mathew McCubbins and Ramamohan Paturi). Public Choice Conference, March 2009, International Network for Social Network Analysis, March 2009; and Midwest Political Science Association, April 2009 2008 Opting In, Opting Out: Conditions for Network Consensus, presented at USC Center for Study of Law and Politics, September. 2008 Critical Review panel on public ignorance at American Political Science Association Conference, Boston, MA, August. 2008 Network structure and coordination (with Mathew McCubbins and Ramomohan Paturi) presented at the Harvard Networks in Political Science Conference, June. 2008 Predicting trust and trustworthiness in an experiment (with Mathew McCubbins) presented at UC Riverside conference on experiments in political science, May. 2008 Diffusion of State Tax and Expenditure Limits (with Ellen Moule) invited talk at University of Pennsylvania s American Politics Workshop, April. 2008 Trading Policy: Constituents and Party in Trade Policy Voting presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association 2008 Diffusion of State Tax and Expenditure Limits (with Ellen Moule) presented at both the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association and the University of Southern California Law School. Teaching POIR 610 Introduction to Research Design, Fall 2013 POSC 435 Politics and The Economy, Fall 2012, 2013 POSC 311 Political Analysis; Spring 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014 POSC 500/IR 513 Research Methods; Fall 2009, 2010, 2012 IR 330 Politics of the World Economy; Spring 2009, Spring 2010, Fall 2010, Spring 2014 IR 514 Multivariate Analysis for International Relations; Fall 2008, Spring 2010, Spring 2012 University and Professional Service APSA Short Course on Comparative Elections, Instructor 2013 Social Computing, Behavioral-Cultural Modeling, & Prediction, Program Committee 2013, 2014
AAAI Symposium on Social Networks and Social Contagion, Program Committee 2012 West Coast Experiments Conference, Organizer 2011 Center for International Studies, Advisory Committee 2009, 2010 Executive Committee, Department of Political Science 2008, 2010 Dissertation Committees James Pita, Computer Science Finished Fall 2012 Mariano Bertucci, Political Science and International Relations In progress