Research Associates

Gnana K. Bharathy completed his doctoral work in Systems Engineering. During the course of his dissertation work, Gnana has developed a systems methodology for integrating social system frameworks and modeling human behavior through knowledge engineering based process, and has employed the same to create several models of leaders and followers in situations involving conflict-cooperation. His dissertation has recently been awarded the INCOSE-Stevens award for promising research in systems engineering and integration. Gnana also received the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Process Center's Ackoff award (2005) for carrying out research on Human Decision Processes.

Gnana's formal academic training has been in the areas of Engineering (process/ environmental, and information systems), Risk Analysis, and Systems Science.

Deepthi Chandrasekaran is a PhD student in Electrical and Systems Engineering. Her area of interests include human decision modelling and simulation. She is currently working with Dr.Silverman on the JSAF InsurgiSIM project. She recieved her undergraduate degree in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University. Her hobbies are dancing and reading.

Jia Cheng is a Masters student in Computer Graphics and Gaming Technology at Upenn. He received B.E. degree in computer science in Hohai University in China. He's been working as programmer in Professor Silverman's leader followers simulation project and making common shared utilities for other projects. In spare time, he usually play video games, watch movies, find exciting things to do.
 

Mike Johns is a PhD student in the computer and information sciences department at the University of Pennsylvania. His primary research focus is an exploration of the role of emotion in decisionmaking.

G. Jiyun Kim (Jeff) recently completed his doctoral work in Political Science at the University of Michigan and joined Dr. Silverman's lab. He primarily uses modeling (both formal and computational) and large N quantitative methods to study political transitions, conflict resolution, state failure, and political violence. Jeff enjoys taking road trips, cooking, eating at nice restaurants, watching MLB, Big Ten Football, and EPL games, and reading biographies in his spare time.

Kevin Knight is a senior research programmer in Dr. Barry Silverman's lab. He holds a PhD in mathematics from the University of Manchester, where he specialized in mathematical logic, in particular logical inconsistency and inconsistency-tolerant logics. In addition, Kevin has extensive practical experience in artificial intelligence, especially regarding knowledge bases and inference engines. He spends most of his spare time practicing martial arts.
 

Aline Normoyle is A senior research programmer in Dr. Barry Silverman's lab and comes to the University of Pennsylvania with 7 years of distributed simulation experience. Her interests include API and user interface design, network programming, computer graphics, and game design. She has designed and implemented commercial softwares and APIs, most notably a flexible, extensible 3D Stealth Viewer. When she is not programming, Aline spends her time killing zombies and knitting.

Ben Nye is currently pursuing his doctorate in Electrical and Systems Engineering, researching alongside Barry Silverman. Current research work he is involved in focuses on simulating decision making in sets of hierarchal groups, working towards automated exploration of the state space. In addition to a B.S. in Computer Engineering, he also has a significant background in psychology.
 

Mjumbe Wawatu Poe is a research programmer in Dr. Silverman's lab. He received his B.S. in Computer Science from Harvey Mudd College in 2005. He hopes to use science and social simulation for the good of humanity. In his spare time he makes artistic furniture from wood and plays pick-up soccer. He also likes to keep small mathematical and scientific programming projects on the side in order to learn new concepts and stay sharp. His name means "representative of the people" in Kiswahili, an East African language.
 

Mark Roddy is a research programmer in Dr. Silverman's research lab. His current responsibilities include development of APIs as well as managing operations of the lab infastructure. He received his undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Rutgers University, concentrating in distributed systems. In addition, Mark has extensive experience is in relational database design and development in several industry domains. His hobbies include football and record collecting.
 

Ruhi Sinha is a first year grad student majoring in Computer Graphics and Game Technology (CGGT) at the Penn Engineering school. Beginning Spring 2007, she has been working under Prof. Silverman on the FactionSim project. Currently her work includes design and implementation of the user interface for running and editing the simulation. Ruhi obtained her undergraduate degree in computer engineering from 'National Institute of Technology', India. Her hobbies include dance, painting and lately 3D modeling in Maya.
 

Ransom Weaver is a former graduate student in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and was a 1 year fellow at the Center for Arabic Study Abroad in Cairo in 1995. Ransom led the design and programming effort on Dr. C.J. McMahon's Multimedia Tutorials for Materials Science, a CD-ROM based university curriculum for Materials Science. With Dr. Silverman in Systems Engineering he has developed HeartSense: A Game for Heart Attack Pre-hospitalization Delay Reduction, and has conducted research for the Terrorism and Asymmetric Conflict Gaming project for developing realistic synthetic personas for training simulators.