Research Agenda

Overview of research for Imagination in Action conference 2019

The Social Complexity of Technological Change

My research agenda is to embrace the complexity of artificial intelligence (AI), the future of work, and the socio-economic consequences of technological change. This goal is inherently multi-disciplinary and collaborative as it builds broadly on advances in the fields of labor economics, sociology, computational social science, network science, data science, political science, and complex systems.

Lecture for the S3D Computational Social Science Seminar at CMU
Fall 2018 Lecture at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank
PhD Dissertation Defense at the MIT Media Lab (2019)
Interview with the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (2019)
An interview with SAGE on my research methods

Upcoming Presentations:

  • NetSci 2024
  • IC2S2 2024
  • The AI and the Future of Work Conference at the Wharton School

Papers in Submission:

  • Enhacing Labor markets' resilience in preparation for the Net-Zero Transition and New Technologies through complex systems

    R. Maria del Rio Chanona, Morgan R. Frank, Penny Mealy, Esteban Moro, Ljubica Nedelkoska.
    Under review for a Santa Fe Institute edited volumes.

  • Causal analysis of stakeholder interdependencies in 10-k reports

    Ivy Luo, Morgan R. Frank, Sandro Claudio Lera.
    Under review at the Journal of Business Ethics (BUSI) (preprint).

  • AI exposure predicts unemployment risk

    Morgan R. Frank, Yong-Yeol 'YY' Ahn, Esteban Moro.
    Under review in PNAS Nexus (preprint).

Published Papers:

Behavior-based dependency networks between places shape urban economic resilience
Nature Human Behaviour (2024)

Takahiro Yabe, Bernardo Garcia Bulle Bueno, Morgan R. Frank, Alex Pentland, and Esteban Moro

Companion Website

A national longitudinal dataset of skills taught in U.S. higher education curricula
Nature Scientific Data (2024)

Alireza Javadian Sabet, Sarah Bana, Renzhe Yu, Morgan R. Frank

Network constraints on career mobility
Nature Cities (2024)

Morgan R. Frank, Esteban Moro, Tobin South, Alex Rutherford, Alex 'Sandy' Pentland, Bledi Taska, Iyad Rahwan

(preprint)

Location is a major barrier for transferring US fossil fuel employment to green jobs
Nature Communications (2023)

Junghyun Lim, Michael Aklin, Morgan R. Frank

Allotaxonometry and rank-turbulence divergence: a universal instrument for comparing complex systems
EPJ Data Science (2023)

Peter Sheridan Dodds, Joshua R. Minot, Michael V. Arnold, Thayer Alshaabi, Jane Lydia Adams, David Rushing Dewhurst, Tyler J. Gray, Morgan R. Frank, Andrew J. Reagan, and Christopher M. Danforth

Transformative potential of AI: innovation, impact, and implications for the future workforce
Santander X Xpert (2023)

Esteban Moro, Morgan R. Frank

Connecting Higher Education to Workplace Activities and Earnings
PLOS One (2023)

Hung Chau, Sarah H. Bana, Baptiste Bouvier, Morgan R. Frank

Art and the science of generative AI
Science (2023)

Ziv Epstein, Aaron Hertzmann, Memo Akten, Hany Farid, Jessica Fjeld, Morgan R. Frank, Matthew Groh, Laura Herman, Neil Leach, Robert Mahari, Alex ``Sandy'' Pentland, Olga Russakovsky, Hope Schroeder, Amy Smith

Image created by co-author Memo Atken.

Complete white paper here and companion website.

Driving Next to Automated Vehicles: Emergent Human-machine Cooperation in Mixed Traffic
CHI (2023)

Yutong Zhang, Shihong Ling, Edmond Awad, Morgan R. Frank, Na Du

Automation Impacts on China's Polarized Job Market
Journal of Computational Social Science (2022)

Haohui Caron Chen, Xun Li, Morgan R. Frank, Xiaozhen Qin, Weipan Xu, Manuel Cebrian, Iyad Rahwan

Housing Prices and the Skills Composition of Neighborhoods
Frontiers in Big Data (2021)

Shahad Althobaiti, Saud Alghumayjan, Morgan R. Frank, Esteban Moro, Ahmad Alabdulkareem, Alex 'Sandy' Pentland

Universal resilience patterns in labor markets
Nature Communications (2021)

Esteban Moro*, Morgan R. Frank*, Alex 'Sandy' Pentland, Alex Rutherford, Manuel Cebrian, Iyad Rahwan
(*authors contributed equally)

Developing China's Workforce Skill Taxonomy Reveals Extent of Labor Market Polarization
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications (2021)

Weipan Xu, Xiaozhen Qin, Xun Li, Haohui Chen, Morgan R. Frank, Alex Rutherford, Andrew Reeson, Iyad Rahwan

Generalized Word Shift Graphs: A Method for Visualizing and Explaining Pairwise Comparisons Between Texts
EPJ Data Science (2021)

Ryan J. Gallagher, Morgan R. Frank, Lewis Mitchell, Aaron J. Schwartz, Andrew J. Reagan, Christopher M. Danforth, Peter Sheridan Dodds

A common trajectory recapitulated by urban economies
Science Advances (2020)

Inho Hong, Morgan R. Frank, Iyad Rahwan, Woo-Sung Jung, Hyejin Youn

Towards Understanding the Impact of AI on Labor
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (2019)

Morgan R. Frank, David Autor, James E. Bessen, Erik Brynjolfsson, Manuel Cebrian, David J. Deming, Maryann Feldman, Matthew Groh, Jose Lobo, Esteban Moro, Dashun Wang, Hyejin Youn, Iyad Rahwan

The evolution of citation graphs in artificial intelligence research
Nature Machine Intelligence (2019)

Morgan R. Frank, Dashun Wang, Manuel Cebrian, Iyad Rahwan

(preprint)

Unpacking the polarization of workplace skills
Science Advances (2018)

Ahmad Alabdulkareem*, Morgan R. Frank*, Lijun Sun, Bedoor AlShebli, Cesar Hidalgo, Iyad Rahwan
(*author contributed equally)

Blog post.
Interactive website.

Small cities face greater impact from automation
Journal of the Royal Society Interface (2018)

Morgan R. Frank, Lijun Sun, Manuel Cebrian, Hyejin Youn, Iyad Rahwan

Detecting reciprocity at a global scale
Science Advances (2018)

Morgan R. Frank, Nick Obradovich, Lijun Sun, Wei Lee Woon, Brad L. LeVeck, Iyad Rahwan

Validating Bayesian Truth-Serum in Large-scale Online Human Experiments
PLOS ONE (2017)

Morgan R. Frank, Manuel Cebrian, Galen Pickard, Iyad Rahwan

The Lexicocalorimeter: Gauging public health through caloric input and output on social media
PLOS ONE (2017)

Sharon E. Alajajian, Jake Ryland Williams, Andrew J. Reagan, Stephen C. Alajajian, Morgan R. Frank, Lewis Mitchell, Jacob Lahne, Christopher M. Danforth, Peter Sheridan Dodds

Interactive Website.

Human language reveals a universal positivity bias
Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (2015)

Peter Sheridan Dodds, Eric M. Clark, Suma Desu, Morgan R. Frank, Andrew J. Reagan, Jake Ryland Williams, Lewis Mitchell, Kameron Decker Harris, Isabel M. Kloumann, James P. Bagrow, Karine Megerdoomian, Matthew T. McMahon, Brian F. Tivnan, Christopher M. Danforth

Standing swells surveyed showing surprisingly stable solutions to the Lorenz '96 Model
International Journal of Bifurcations and Chaos (2014)

Morgan R. Frank, Lewis Mitchell, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Christopher M. Danforth

Example Video.

An Evolutionary Algorithm approach to link prediction in dynamic social networks
Journal of Computational Science (2014)

Catherine A. Bliss, Morgan R. Frank, Christopher M. Danforth, Peter Sheridan Dodds

Happiness and the patterns of life: a study of geolocated tweets
Nature Scientific Reports (2013)

Morgan R. Frank, Lewis Mitchell, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Christopher M. Danforth

THE GEOGRAPHY OF HAPPINESS: CONNECTING TWITTER SENTIMENT AND EXPRESSION, DEMOGRAPHICS, AND OBJECTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF PLACE
PLOS ONE (2013)

Lewis Mitchell, Morgan R. Frank, Kameron Decker Harris, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Christopher M. Danforth

Enumerating costas latin squares
Journal of Combinatorial Mathematics and Combinatorial Computation (2012)

Morgan R. Frank, Jeffery Dinitz

Preprints:

Longitudinal Complex Dynamics of Labour Markets Reveal Increasing Polarisation
(preprint, 2022)

Shahad Althobaiti, Ahmad Alabdulkareem, Judy Hanwen Shen, Iyad Rahwan, Morgan R. Frank, Esteban Moro, Alex Rutherford

Exposure of occupations to technologies of the fourth industrial revolution
(preprint, 2021)

Benjamin Meindl, Morgan R. Frank, Joana Mendonca

Industrial Topics in Urban Labor System
(preprint, 2020)

Jaehyuk Park, Morgan R. Frank, Lijun Sun, Hyejin Youn

Constructing a taxonomy of fine-grained human movement and activity motifs through social media
(preprint, 2014)

Morgan R. Frank, Jake Ryland Williams, Lewis Mitchell, James P. Bagrow, Peter Sheridan Dodds, Christopher M. Danforth

Shadow networks: Discovering hidden nodes with models of information flow
(preprint, 2013)

James P. Bagrow, Suma Desu, Morgan R. Frank, Narine Manukyan, Lewis Mitchell, Andrew Reagan, Eric E. Bloedorn, Lashon B. Booker, Luther K. Branting, Michael J. Smith, Brian F. Tivnan, Christopher M. Danforth, Peter S. Dodds, Joshua C. Bongard

Education

Postdoctoral Associate at MIT's Media Lab

(June 2019-2020)

With advising from Prof. Alex 'Sandy' Pentland, I will studied how the future of work is taking shape in US cities using tools from data science, labor economics, and complex systems. Additional affiliations include MIT's IDSS, Media Laboratory, and IDE.

PhD at MIT's Media Lab

(2014-June 2019)

I was as a graduate research assistant in Prof. Iyad Rahwan's Scalable Cooperation group. Scalable Cooperation focused on the impact of artificial intelligence on individuals and society. My main goal is to examine how AI technology changes the nature of work. I achieved this using tools from labor economics, complex systems, data science, and network science.

Master's degree at the University of Vermont

(2012-2014)

I was a graduate research assistant in the Computational Story Lab directed by Prof. Chris Danforth and Prof. Peter Dodds. Research ranged from dynamical systems and toy climate models, to understanding the spread of happiness and human mobility. My research leveraged tools from data science, complex systems, chaos theory, applied mathematics, and network science.

Bachelor's degree at the University of Vermont

(2008-2012)

I completed my bachelor's degree in the Honors College at the University of Vermont (UVM) with advising from Prof. Jeff Dinitz. I majored in Mathematics and double minored in Statistics and Computer Science.

Not-Research Statement

When away from my computer, I might be found running with my dog, taking long bike rides, lifting in the campus gym, or swimming laps at the campus pool. It is essential to absorb oxygen and sunlight away from a screen. Look me up on Strava.com!