Joe B. Bak-Coleman

I’m a computational social scientist whose research explores how collectives make decisions in the face of uncertainty, focusing on the impact of digital technologies on collective behavior. Currently, I am a research scientist at the University of Washington, an External Applied Complexity Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute, an external affiliate at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center and a Collaboration Partner at the University of Konstanz’s Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour. My work spans topics such as misinformation, polarization, and the development of evidence-based tech policy, with work in Nature, Science Advances, and PNAS. I have a forthcoming book, Of Fish and Fascists, set for release in 2027 by Princeton University Press.

Before my current role, I served as a Consulting Expert for the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Reports Office, and an Associate Research Scholar at Columbia University’s Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security. I earned my Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Princeton University in 2020, where I worked with Iain Couzin and Dan Rubenstein, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public. Over the past decade, my research has examined decision-making in human and animal collectives, from fish schools and zebra herds to social media users and scientists.