Bio
Gizem Korkmaz is an Associate Professor at the Social and Decision Analytics Division (SDAD) of the Biocomplexity Institute and Initiative at the University of Virginia. She is also an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics at Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on social and economic networks, involving mathematical and computational modeling, and empirical analysis. Gizem received her PhD in Economics at the European University Institute in 2012. Her PhD dissertation spans game theory and network theory; focuses on the interplay between the network structure and strategic decision-making.
She is the principal investigator (PI) of the 2016 Minerva research project titled "The Dynamics of Common Knowledge on Social Networks: An Experimental Approach." She is also Co-PI of two projects as part of DARPA programs: Computational Simulation of Online Social Behavior (SocialSim) and Next Generation Social Science (NGS2). She was selected as the 2016 Outstanding New Faculty by Virginia Tech Northern Capital Region Faculty Association. During the postdoctoral research position at the Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory, she contributed to the EMBERS project, as part of IARPA's (The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency) Open Source Indicator program. She developed network-based and statistical models that use multiple data sources such as social media including Twitter, news/blogs in order to predict critical societal events (protests, strikes) and election results in targeted Latin American countries.
The hallmark of her research is to blend her knowledge in traditional economics with big data using tools from social network analysis and machine learning. She works with traditional as well as novel data sources (e.g., social media, 911, Fire/EMS, patient records, census) to ask how we can make data useful for people and communities.
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- Social and Economic Networks
- Game Theory
- Behavioral Economics
- Social and Decision Analytics
- Industrial Organization
- Applied Microeconomic Theory
- R&D Economics
- Innovation
- Collective Action
- Social Contagion
- Social Media Analytics
- Political Economy
- Policy Analytics
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- Outstanding New Faculty Award, Virginia Tech National Capital Region Faculty Association, Dec. 2016.
- Full Scholarship Award by the National Economists Club (NEC) for the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) Economic Policy Conference, Washington D.C., Mar. 2017
- Contributing Faculty, “Early Model Based Event Recognition using Surrogates (EMBERS) Software” won Inventors of the Month, The Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation, Virginia Tech, Nov. 2016.
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Ph.D., Economics, European University Institute (EUI), Florence - Italy
Thesis: "Network Structure Matters: Applications to R&D Collaboration, Collusion, and Online Communication
Networks" Advisor: Prof. Fernando Vega-RedondoM.A., Economics, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul - Turkey
M.Sc., Economics, European University Institute (EUI), Florence - Italy
B.A. with Honors, Economics, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul - Turkey
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Co-director of the DSPG Young Scholars Program.
Chase Dawson originally planned to spend the summer in Denmark and France gaining first-hand knowledge about international sustainability issues. When travel became impossible, he looked for another way to apply his education toward good. Enter the Data Science for the Public Good Young Scholars program.

The University of Virginia’s Biocomplexity Institute announces that it has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) with five entities in Turkey, establishing the Data Science for the Public Good (DSPG) Young Scholars program in Istanbul and Ankara, Turkey’s capital city.
Over the last five summers, students from across the country have come together at the Biocomplexity Institute’s Arlington, Va. location for the Data Science for the Public Good (DSPG) Young Scholars program – an 11-week immersive research program through which students gain world-class, hands-on professional experience combining data science and public service. This year, as the world continues to evolve due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the program has followed suit, adopting an entirely virtual format for the first time.
Today’s data revolution is not just about big data, it is about data of all sizes and types.

Have you ever wondered what a career combining data science and public service looks like? This summer, 12 undergraduate and graduate students from across the country convened at the Biocomplexity Institute's Arlington, Va. location to find out first-hand.
Research Associate Professor Gizem Korkmaz shares her opinion on how data analysis plays a role in government working more effectively for its citizens.
