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March 30, 2022

17:00-18:30 IL time

Mexico City

By Carlos Gershenson

The multi-scale evolution of human settlements

Human settlements have transitioned in size and complexity from villages, to cities, to metropolises, to megacities, to megalopolises. I will review the historical and technological conditions that allowed each transition and how settlements have self-organized at multiple scales. Focusing on the megalopolis of Central Mexico, I will mention challenges, opportunities, and perspectives for the near future of megalopolises and the long-term potential of human settlements and future transitions.

Carlos Gershenson_edited.jpg
Carlos Gershenson

Carlos Gershenson is a tenured, full time research professor at the computer science department of the Instituto de Investigaciones en Matemáticas Aplicadas y en Sistemas at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), where he leads the Self-organizing Systems Lab. He is also an affiliated researcher at the Center for Complexity Sciences at UNAM. He was a Visiting Professor at MIT and at Northeastern University (2015-2016) and at ITMO University (2015-2019). He was a postdoctoral fellow at the New England Complex Systems Institute (2007-2008). He holds a PhD summa cum laude from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium (2002-2007). His thesis was on “Design and Control of Self-organizing Systems”. He holds an MSc degree in Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems, from the University of Sussex (2001-2002), and a BEng degree in Computer Engineering from the Fundación Arturo Rosenblueth, México. (1996-2001). He studied five semesters of Philosophy at UNAM (1998-2001). He has a wide variety of academic interests, including complex systems, self-organization, urbanism, artificial life, evolution, cognition, artificial societies, and philosophy. He has more than 150 scientific publications in books, journals, and conference proceedings. He is Editor-in-Chief of Complexity Digest, Associate Editor for the journals Complexity and Frontiers in Robotics and AI, and member of the Board of Advisors for Scientific American. He has received numerous awards, including a Google Research Award in Latin America and the Audi Urban Future Award. He has worked in consulting, software and web development, teaching at undergraduate and graduate levels, and scientific divulgation and journalism.

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