Luis E. Ortiz

Luis Ortiz, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Science, College of Engineering and Computer Science, The University of Michigan, Dearborn

The study of large complex systems of structured strategic interaction, such as economic, social, biological, financial, or large computer networks, provides substantial opportunities for fundamental computational and scientific contributions. Luis’ research focuses on problems emerging from the study of systems involving the interaction of a large number of “entities,” which is my way of abstractly and generally capturing individuals, institutions, corporations, biological organisms, or even the individual chemical components of which they are made (e.g., proteins and DNA). Current technology has facilitated the collection and public availability of vasts amounts of data, particularly capturing system behavior at fine levels of granularity. In Luis’ group, they study behavioral data of strategic nature at big data levels. One of their main objectives is to develop computational tools for data science, and in particular learning large-population models from such big sources of behavioral data that we can later use to study, analyze, predict and alter future system behavior at a variety of scales, and thus improve the overall efficiency of real-world complex systems (e.g., the smart grid, social and political networks, independent security and defense systems, and microfinance markets, to name a few).