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Professor Andrea Baronchelli

Professor of Complexity Science

School of Science & Technology Department of Mathematics

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About

Overview

Andrea Baronchelli is a Professor of Complexity Science at City, University of London, and a Research Associate at the UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies.

Andrea studies how humans and AI agents behave in decentralised socio-technical systems. His research looks at how we coordinate through networks - for example by developing shared norms and category systems - and at how technologies like blockchain, social media, and AI are changing public debate, governance, and decision-making. To do this, he analyses large datasets, build mathematical models, and run experiments with both humans and AI agents.

His work has helped inform public debate and shape policy. It has been supported by organisations including UKRI, PayPal, ESRC, InnovateUK, and the UK Government. It has received wide media coverage and has had real-world impact, including its use as a case study in the UK’s national research assessment (UK REF2021 impact case).

In 2019, Andrea received the Young Scientist Award for Socio and Econophysics from the German Physical Society. From 2019 to 2021, he led the Economic Data Science theme at The Alan Turing Institute, where he launched the Token Economy theme in 2021 and led it until 2025.

Recent grants as Principal Investigator include:

* Paypal gift: "Self-organized patterns of (de)centralization in the Bitcoin blockchain". January 2022 - January 2024. Funded amount: $340,000.

*UK Government grant: "IRIS: Global Health Security Academic Research Coalition". March 2021 - November 2023. Funded amount: £640,000.

*The Alan Turing Institute grant: "Investigating emerging central actors in the cryptocurrency ecosystem". PI. October 2020 - September 2023. Funded amount: £65,000.

*UKRI, COVID-19 Rapid Response Call: "COVID 19: Monitoring the effects of the pandemic on illicit online trade" (Grant no. ES/V00400X/1). May 2020 - November 2021. Funded amount: £272,813.

*Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) Grant: "Data Science for Smart Bike Sharing". May 2019 - November 2021. Funded amount: £278,074.

In the video below Andrea discusses his research on the physics of socio-technical systems:

Shaping the world through research with Dr Andrea Baronchelli

For more info please see Andrea's PERSONAL HOMEPAGE: https://www.andreabaronchelli.com

Research

For more info please see Dr. Baronchelli's PERSONAL HOMEPAGE: https://sites.google.com/site/andreabaronchelli/ <\/b>

Andrea pursues an interdisciplinary research agenda centred on the modeling of social and biological systems, with particular regard to issues in linguistics, cognitive science and evolutionary dynamics. At a more fundamental level, Andrea's research focuses on complex networks and on the way they affect the dynamical processes taking place upon them. He uses concepts and tools coming from Complex Systems, Network Science and Data Science.

Andrea has published 60+ peer-reviewed papers, and has presented his work in 30+ invited talks at International Conferences, Universities and Institutions.

Publications

Featured publications

  1. Falkenberg, M., Galeazzi, A., Torricelli, M., Di Marco, N., Larosa, F., Sas, M.... Baronchelli, A. (2022). Growing polarization around climate change on social media. Nature Climate Change, 12(12), pp. 1114-1121. doi:10.1038/s41558-022-01527-x

    [publisher’s website]

  2. Bracci, A., Boehnke, J., ElBahrawy, A., Perra, N., Teytelboym, A. and Baronchelli, A. (2022). Macroscopic properties of buyer–seller networks in online marketplaces. PNAS Nexus, 1(4). doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac201

    [publisher’s website]

  3. Baronchelli, A., Halaburda, H. and Teytelboym, A. (2022). Central bank digital currencies risk becoming a digital Leviathan. Nature Human Behaviour, 6(7), pp. 907-909. doi:10.1038/s41562-022-01404-9

    [publisher’s website]

  4. Nadini, M., Alessandretti, L., Di Giacinto, F., Martino, M., Aiello, L.M. and Baronchelli, A. (2021). Mapping the NFT revolution: market trends, trade networks, and visual features. Scientific Reports, 11(1). doi:10.1038/s41598-021-00053-8

    [publisher’s website]

  5. Guilbeault, D., Baronchelli, A. and Centola, D. (2021). Experimental evidence for scale-induced category convergence across populations. Nature Communications, 12(1). doi:10.1038/s41467-020-20037-y

    [publisher’s website]

  6. Lucchini, L., Alessandretti, L., Lepri, B., Gallo, A. and Baronchelli, A. (2020). From code to market: Network of developers and correlated returns of cryptocurrencies. Science Advances, 6(51). doi:10.1126/sciadv.abd2204

    [publisher’s website]

  7. ElBahrawy, A., Alessandretti, L., Rusnac, L., Goldsmith, D., Teytelboym, A. and Baronchelli, A. (2020). Collective dynamics of dark web marketplaces. Scientific Reports, 10(1). doi:10.1038/s41598-020-74416-y

    [publisher’s website]

  8. Amato, R., Lacasa, L., Diaz-Guilera, A. and Baronchelli, A. (2018). The dynamics of norm change in the cultural evolution of language. PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 115(33), pp. 8260-8265. doi:10.1073/pnas.1721059115

    [publisher’s website]

  9. Alessandretti, L., Sapiezynski, P., Sekara, V., Lehmann, S. and Baronchelli, A. (2018). Evidence for a conserved quantity in human mobility. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(7), pp. 485-491. doi:10.1038/s41562-018-0364-x

    [publisher’s website]

  10. Centola, D., Becker, J., Brackbill, D. and Baronchelli, A. (2018). Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention. Science, 360(6393), pp. 1116-1119. doi:10.1126/science.aas8827

    [publisher’s website]

  11. Centola, D. and Baronchelli, A. (2015). The spontaneous emergence of conventions: An experimental study of cultural evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(7), pp. 1989-1994. doi:10.1073/pnas.1418838112

    [publisher’s website]

  12. Baronchelli, A., Ferrer-i-Cancho, R., Pastor-Satorras, R., Chater, N. and Christiansen, M.H. (2013). Networks in Cognitive Science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17, pp. 348-360

    [publisher’s website]

  13. Starnini, M., Baronchelli, A. and Pastor-Satorras, R. (2013). Modeling human dynamics of face-to-face interaction networks. Physical Review Letters, 110(16)

    [publisher’s website]

  14. Perra, N., Baronchelli, A., Mocanu, D., Gonçalves, B., Pastor-Satorras, R. and Vespignani, A. (2012). Random walks and search in time-varying networks. Physical Review Letters, 109(23)

    [publisher’s website]

  15. Baronchelli, A., Gong, T., Puglisi, A. and Loreto, V. (2010). Modeling the emergence of universality in color naming patterns. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(6), pp. 2403-2407

    [publisher’s website]

  16. Puglisi, A., Baronchelli, A. and Loreto, V. (2008). Cultural route to the emergence of linguistic categories. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(23), pp. 7936-7940

    [publisher’s website]

  17. Baronchelli, A., Felici, M., Loreto, V., Caglioti, E. and Steels, L. (2006). Sharp transition towards shared vocabularies in multi-agent systems. Journal of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment, (6)

    [publisher’s website]

Publications by category

Chapters (10)

  • Alessandretti, L., Baronchelli, A. and He, Y.-.H. (2023). Machine Learning Meets Number Theory: The Data Science of Birch–Swinnerton-Dyer. Machine Learning in Pure Mathematics and Theoretical Physics (pp. 1-39). WORLD SCIENTIFIC (EUROPE). ISBN 9781800613690.
  • Moretti, P., Baronchelli, A., Starnini, M. and Pastor-Satorras, R. (2013). Generalized voter-like models on heterogeneous networks. In Ganguly, N. (Ed.), Dynamics On and Of Complex Networks Springer Science & Business. ISBN 9781461467298.
  • Dediu, D., Cysouw, M., Levinson, S.C., Baronchelli, A., Christiansen, M.H., Croft, W.... Lieven, E. (2013). Cultural Evolution of Language. CULTURAL EVOLUTION: SOCIETY, TECHNOLOGY, LANGUAGE, AND RELIGION (pp. 303-332). ISBN 9780262318280.
  • Baronchelli, A., Gong, T., Puglisi, A. and Loreto, V. (2010). On the origin of universal categorization patterns: an in-silica experiment. In Smith, A.D.M. (Ed.), The Evolution of Language (pp. 365-366). World Scientific. ISBN 9789814295222.
  • Baronchelli, A., Puglisi, A. and Loreto, V. (2010). Complex systems approach to natural categorization. In Smith, A.D.M. (Ed.), The Evolution of Language World Scientific. ISBN 9789814295222.
  • Mukherjee, A., Baronchelli, A., Loreto, V., Puglisi, A. and Tria, F. (2010). Aging in the Emergence of Linguistic Categories. In Fellermann, H., Dörr, M., Hanczyc, M.M., Laursen, L.L., Maurer, S.E., Merkle, D.... Rasmussen, S. (Eds.), Artificial Life XII: Proceedings of the Twelfth International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems (pp. 589-590). USA: MIT Press. ISBN 9780262290753.
  • Loreto, V., Baronchelli, A. and Puglisi, A. (2009). Mathematical modeling of language games. In Nolfi, S. and Mirolli, M. (Eds.), Evolution of Communication and Language in Embodied Agents Springer. ISBN 9783642012501.
  • Jäger, H., Steels, L., Baronchelli, A., Briscoe, E., Christiansen, M.H., Griffiths, T.... Triesch, J. (2009). What can mathematical, computational and robotic models tell us about the origins of syntax? In Bickerton, D. and Szathmáry, E. (Eds.), Biological Foundations and Origin of Syntax (pp. 385-410). MIT Press. ISBN 9780262013567.
  • Baronchelli, A., Cattuto, C., Loreto, V. and Puglisi, A. (2009). Complex systems approach to the emergence of language. In Minett, J.W. and Wang, W.S.-.Y. (Eds.), Language, Evolution, and the Brain City University of HK Press. ISBN 9789629371654.
  • Baronchelli, A., Dall'Asta, L., Barrat, A. and Loreto, V. (2006). Strategies for fast convergence in semiotic dynamic. In Rocha, L.M. (Ed.), Artificial life X (pp. 480-485). The MIT Press.

Conference papers and proceedings (8)

Journal articles (98)

Thesis/dissertation

  • Baronchelli, A. Statistical mechanics approach to language games. (PhD)