PhD Research Specializations

Computational Social Science

Characterized by its social science depth, state-of-the-art methods, and field-based understanding of technology firms and markets.

Focuses on:
- Analysis and design of public policy
- Crowdsourcing
- Coordination in online labor markets
- Casual inference and experimentation

Courses to Take
Statistics, computer science, optimization, economics, sociology, and possibly other social sciences

Recent Dissertations
Recent PhD dissertations include:
- Design and analysis of a peer-to-peer credit network and reputation system
- Analysis of dynamic online markets
- Design and analysis of flash teams
- Fast algorithms for large scale personalized recommendations

Program and Center Affiliations
Social Algorithms Lab (SOAL)
Center for Work, Technology & Organization (WTO)

Decision and Risk Analysis

Focuses on applying engineering systems analysis and probability to complex economic and technical design or management problems, in the private and public sectors.

The Engineering Risk Research Group (ERRG) focuses on:
- complex engineered systems (e.g., optimal architecture of satellites and deflection of asteroids’ trajectories)
- cyber security, and risks in games against adversaries (e.g., counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, and staying ahead of narco-traffickers).

Courses to Take
Courses include the mathematical foundations of modeling dynamic environments, value and management of uncertain opportunities and risks, and public policy and strategy applications. Risk analysis requires optimization, stochastic processes, economics and game theory courses.

Recent Dissertations
Recent PhD dissertations include:
- Experiment sample sizes for influence diagrams
- Markov process regression
- Quantile function methods for decision analysis

Energy and Environment

Focuses on energy and environmental modeling such as:
- Integrated assessment of global climate change
- Litigation/impacts/adaption
- Energy demand analysis including economic and/or behavioral factors associated with energy efficiency
- Market structure for electricity systems and environmental mitigation
- Behavioral economics related to energy
- Comparative use of energy models through the Energy Modeling Forum.

Courses to Take
PhD students take courses in economic analysis, mathematical modeling, optimization, decision analysis, policy analysis, econometrics, and a variety of other courses, depending on the student's particular background and interests.

Program and Center Affiliations
Energy Modeling Forum
Precourt Energy Efficiency Center

Health Systems Modeling and Policy

Focuses on the application of analytical, computational, and economic tools to inform decision making in health. Areas of interest include clinical decision making, public health decision making, and healthcare operations management.

Courses to Take
Students take courses in optimization, probability and statistics, economics, operations management, cost-effectiveness analysis, and health policy modeling, as well as a variety of other courses.

Recent Dissertations
Recent PhD dissertations include:
-Managing uncertainty in medical decision making
-Resource allocation for infectious disease control
-Optimizing patient treatment decisions in the presence of rapid technological advances
-Economic analysis of HIV prevention and treatment portfolios.

Program and Center Affiliations
Center for Health Policy/Program on Clinical Outcomes Research (CHP/PCOR) in the Medical School

National Security Policy

See the Engineering Risk Research Group under Decision and Risk Analysis.

Operations Research

Focuses on developing and applying analytical, computational, and economic tools to address a wide variety of problems in business, government, and society. The area is characterized by its mathematical depth, broad applicability, and interdisciplinary nature and has a particular emphasis in developing and applying models and algorithms to gain new insights and make better decisions across multiple domains.

Courses to Take

PhD students take core courses in optimization and stochastics as well as advanced courses in computer science, game theory, microeconomics, statistics, and other areas tailored to the interests of the student, e.g. Computational Social Science, Operations Management, Environmental Policy, Health Policy, etc.

Program and Center Affiliations
Institute for Computational and Mathematical Engineering (ICME)

Organizations

Characterized by the study of work, mainly in technical settings and considers the organizational issues implicated at the intersection of work and technology.

Courses to Take
Sociology, social psychology, organizational theory, and organizational behavior as well as field research methods courses including ethnography, statistics, and social network analysis

Recent Dissertations
Recent PhD dissertations include:
- Global collaboration
- Flash teams
- Social movements
- Occupational identities
- Collective innovation

Program and Center Affiliations
Center for Work, Technology, and Organizations (WTO)

Quantitative Finance

Focuses on the quantitative and statistical study of financial risks, institutions, markets, and technology.

Courses to Take
Students take courses in probability, statistics, optimization, finance, economics, computational mathematics, and computer science as well as a variety of other courses.

Recent Dissertations
Recent PhD dissertations include:
- Studies of machine learning methods for risk management
- Systemic financial risk
- Algorithmic trading
- Optimal order execution
- Large-scale portfolio optimization
- Mortgage markets
-Statistical testing of financial models

Program and Center Affiliations
Advanced Financial Technologies Laboratory (AFTLab)

Strategy, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship

Characterized by its social science depth, state-of-the-art methods, and field-based understanding of technology firms and markets. Focuses on private technology firms as well as on the role of public policy in shaping the rate, nature and success of entrepreneurial activities.

Focuses on:
- Innovation
- Competition
- Collaboration of established firms
- Formation/growth of ventures

Courses to Take
Organization theory, economics, sociology, entrepreneurship, and strategy as well as methods courses in statistics, experimental methods, inductive case studies, and computational tools.

Recent Dissertations
Recent PhD dissertations include:
- Platform competition
- Competitive interaction in the software industry
- Collaborations of private and public sector organizations to create breakthrough technologies
- Regulatory reforms and innovation in medical device industry
- Educational reforms and their implications for entrepreneurship in China

Program and Center Affiliations
Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP)