RSRG Events

Seminars | Previous Workshops

Seminars

Currently, we have three (nearly) weekly group meetings within RSRG:

  • An informal RSRG group meeting, typically on Thursdays from 12-1pm.
  • An informal Smart Grid group meeting, typically held every other Monday from 12-1pm.
  • An informal "CS/Econ" group/seminar meeting 12-1pm on Fridays covering topics at the intersection of computer science and economics. For more information about these talks, check out SISL@caltech.

All of these are open to anyone interested in attending. Please email Sydney Garstang (sydney -at- caltech.edu) to be included on the relevant mailing list for each.


Previous Workshops

SoCal NEGT

The Southern California Symposium on Network Economics and Game Theory was held annually. This symposium brought together students, professors, and researchers from Southern California, who apply game theory to analyze, design, and assess the performance of networks. They highlighted synergies between various related research areas, and encouraged discussions regarding the benefits and limitations of game theory as a performance assessment and design tool for networks. Both the application of game theory to networking problems and the development of new game-theoretic methodologies that can be applied in that context were of interest.

Below are links to the websites for past symposia:

  • 2018 (hosted at Caltech)
  • 2016 (hosted at UCLA)
  • 2015 (hosted at USC)
  • 2014 (hosted at Caltech)
  • 2013 (hosted at UCLA)
  • 2012 (hosted at USC)
  • 2011 (hosted at Caltech)
  • 2010 (hosted near UCLA)
  • 2009 (hosted at USC)


WISE16: Workshop on Information and Social Economics

This workshop was held in Baxter Hall at Caltech on August 4-6, 2016. It featured the latest research on social and economic networks and their connection with information economics. Topics included, but were not limited to, learning in networks, social influence, strategic interaction in networks, peer effects, etc.

The Workshop webpage can be found here.

Organizers:



The Theory of Bringing Privacy into Practice

This workshop was held at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA on Friday, April 24, 2015. Katrina Ligett was the organizer of the event, and Moritz Hardt, Kobbi Nissim, and Aaron Roth were among the invited speakers.

Differential privacy has matured into a rich theory, with broad and exciting implications for many application areas. Transfer of these ideas to practice, however, has been slow, for a variety of social, legal, economic, and practical reasons. How can these challenges inform and inspire exciting new theory?

The goal of this workshop was to identify challenges and the opportunities they suggest for new theoretical work, and hence to contribute to the development of a broad agenda for increasing the influence and impact of ideas from the differential privacy literature.

The Workshop webpage can be found here.


Workshop on Social and Information Networks

This workshop was held on Monday, June 15, 2015 in Portland, Oregon, in conjunction with the 16th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (ACM EC 2015, held at FCRC 2015). The workshop brought together researchers and practitioners from academica and industry to discuss the latest developments in social and information networks.

More information can be found at the workshop's website.

Organizers:


NetEcon 2015

NetEcon celebrated its 10th anniversary this year! After two years being held as W-PIN+NetEcon following its merger with the W-PIN workshop, NetEcon returned to its original name and was held at FCRC 2015 in conjunction with ACM SIGMETRICS 2015 and ACM EC 2015.

The aim of NetEcon is to foster discussions on the application of economic and game-theoretic models and principles to address challenges in the development of networks and network-based applications and services. NetEcon was established in 2006 (succeeding to the P2PECON, IBC and PINS workshops) and merged with the W-PIN workshop in 2013. We invite submission of extended abstracts describing original research on theoretical/methodological contributions or on applications to cases of interest. It is our hope that NetEcon will serve as a feeder workshop, i.e., that expanded, polished versions of extended abstracts will appear later in major conference proceedings and refereed journals of relevant research communities.

More information about NetEcon 2015 can be found at the workshop's website.

PC Chairs:


Greenmetrics

Sustainability is a topic of increasing importance in modern society. The primary objective of this workshop is to explore how improvements to or new uses of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can improve the environmental, economic and/or social sustainability of ICT systems, networks, and applications and of non-ICT processes (e.g., quantify the reduction in cost or carbon emissions from using tele-presence services instead of travel).

Topics of interest fall broadly into three main areas:

  • Designing sustainable ICT: Such work includes research measuring, evaluating, or designing energy efficient systems in data centers, networking and communication protocols, etc.
  • ICT for sustainability: Such work includes research proposing new uses of ICT to improve the environmental, economic, and/or social sustainability of non-ICT processes.
  • Building a smarter, more sustainable electricity grid: Such work includes research addressing the challenges (both engineering and economic) that come from incorporating increasing penetration of renewable energy into the grid, demand-response techniques, and smart-metering.

This workshop is intended to bring together researchers from the (traditional) SIGMETRICS and Performance communities with researchers and practitioners in the three areas above, to exchange technical ideas and experiences on issues related to sustainability and ICT. The workshop will include a mixture of invited talks and presentations of accepted papers, and will serve as a forum for the SIGMETRICS and Performance communities to apply their techniques to this emerging and important area.

Greenmetrics is held in conjunction with ACM SIGMETRICS.

Information about Greenmetrics 2016 can be found at the Greenmetrics website.


2014 Network Science Workshop

The 2014 Network Science Workshop was hosted by the Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA from April 25th - April 26th. The local organizer was Dr. Matthew Elliott, Assistant Professor of Economics.

The scope was as follows:
All Caltech and surrounding university faculty and scholars are encouraged to participate to learn about some of the latest developments in network science from the perspective of computer scientists, economists, sociologists and statisticians. Networks are being studied in many disciplines with both different questions being posed and different methodologies being leveraged to address the same questions. The workshop will bring together leading experts in networks from a variety of fields. The general program will feature six speakers throughout the day on Friday, each followed by a brief Q&A session, and Saturday will feature two additional speakers. Breakfasts and lunches will be provided for conference attendees who register. Coffee breaks will be complimentary.

The conference webpage can be found here.


GRID 2020 Discussion Series

The GRID 2020 Discussion Series, held by the Resnick Institute at Caltech, is an informative series of discussions on the critical topics identified in the recent Resnick Report "Grid 2020, Toward a Policy of Renewable and Distributed Energy Resources." Sessions are held during the academic year.

Information about the next installments in the Series, as well as presentations and WebEx links for past installments, can be found at the Resnick Institute's website.


Workshop on Privacy and Economics

A Workshop on Privacy and Economics was held at Caltech from May 3-4, 2013. The goal of this workshop was to nurture a dialogue between data privacy researchers and economists. To encourage this, a workshop format was adopted that was perhaps foreign to the computer scientists, but familiar to the economists: each of about half a dozen plenary talks were paired with a prepared response from a leader from the other research area. The format helped to translate, identify, and interpret important concepts, results, and questions of common interest.