Social networks, the graphs of individuals and their interactions, play a fundamental role in many key aspects of society. Examples include the search for and dissemination of information, spread of epidemics, exchange of goods, allocation of resources, or learning of new behaviors. Two recent orthogonal trends have led to a renewed interest in modeling the evolution and function of social networks:
In particular, these trends have led to increasingly tight collaborations between computer scientists, mathematicians, economists and sociologists to understand and mathematically model the formation and function of social networks. This mini-symposium brought together researchers from multiple disciplines and backgrounds working on mathematical models and algorithmic questions relating to the formation and function of social networks. The goals included a cross-fertilization of ideas across multiple areas, and a broad primer on current research topics for the audience in attendance.
The mini-symposium was held Thursday, July 10, 2008, from 10:30am until 12:30am. Slides for all of the presentations are now available.