Jordan Kemp
PhD Candidate in the Department of Physics at the University of Chicago
Jordan Kemp earned a PhD at the University of Chicago Department of Physics working with adviser Luís Bettencourt and Arvind Murugan. He researches novel theories of social and biological organization by studying agent decision-making in noisy environments. By combining techniques from statistical physics, information theory, and cognitive psychology, he derives theories for agent learning and growth, then studies how these behaviors aggregate at the population level to drive inequality and cooperation. This exciting research blends ideas from physics, machine learning, and behavioral psychology, and hopes to answer open questions from across the social sciences. Jordan comes from a small town at the base of the Appalachian Mountains in rural Pennsylvania, and did his undergraduate degree in physics at Tufts University. He also loves to enjoy the outdoors, follow politics, appreciate music and film, as well as coach and play basketball.