2010–2013 Trainee, NSF/IGERT in the Dynamics of Brain-Body-Environment Systems, IU
2012 Student, Santa Fe Institute (SFI) Complex Systems Summer School, Santa Fe, NM
2006–2008 Student, New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI), Cambridge, MA
Publications (Peer-reviewed Archival)
Journal Articles
Sawyer, A., Frey, S. (in review) Basketball super-teams or fair leagues? Parity policies by powerful regulators don't prevent capture.
Bulat, B., Wang, H., Fujimoto, S., Frey, S. (in review) The Paradox of Volunteer Moderation: Tradeoffs Between Justice, Belonging and Norms in Online Community Governance.
Chew, E., Weisman, W., Frey, S., Huang. J. (in review) Machine Translation for Accessible Multi-Language Text Analysis.
Jhaver, S., Frey, S., & Zhang, A. (forthcoming). Decentralizing Platform Power: A Design Space of Multi-level Governance in Online Social Platforms. Social Media and Society https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.12529
Frey, S., Hedges, J., Tan, J., Zahn, P. (2023) "Composing games into complex institutions" PLOS ONE https://doi.org/j3vs
Korpas L.M., Frey S. and Tan J. (2023) Political, economic, and governance attitudes of blockchain users. Front. Blockchain 6:1125088. https://doi.org/j37x
Gong, X., Huskey, R., Xue, H., Shen, C., Frey, S. (2023) Broadcast information diffusion processes on social media networks: exogenous events lead to more integrated public discourse, Journal of Communication, 73(3) 247–259, https://doi.org/gr4xpn
Zhong, Q., Frey, S., & Hilbert, M. (2022). Quantifying the Selective, Stochastic, and Complementary Drivers of Institutional Evolution in Online Communities. Entropy, 24(9), 1185. https://doi.org/jq57
Zhong, Q., Frey, S. (2022) Institutional similarity drives cultural similarity among online communities. Nature Scientific Reports 12, 18982. https://doi.org/jq56
Zhong, Q., Hilbert, M., & Frey, S. (2022). Breaking the Structural Reinforcement: An Agent-Based Model on Cultural Consumption and Social Relations. Social Science Computer Review. https://doi.org/hzkz
Wang, H.M., Bulat, B., Fujimoto, S., Frey, S. (2022). Governing for Free: Rule Process Effects on Reddit Moderator Motivations. In: Stephanidis, C., Antona, M., Ntoa, S., Salvendy, G. (eds) HCI International 2022 – Late Breaking Posters. HCII 2022. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1655. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/jq6b
Frey, S., & Schneider, N. (2021). Effective voice: Beyond exit and affect in online communities. New Media & Society. https://doi.org/gwpb
Rice D., Siddiki S., Frey S., Kwon H.K., Sawyer A. (2021) Machine coding of policy texts with the Institutional Grammar. Public Admin, 99: 248–262. https://doi.org/ghzpst
Tchernichovski, O., Frey, S., Jacoby, N., Conley, D. (2021) Experimenting With Online Governance, Frontiers in Human Dynamics 3, 18 https://doi.org/f8qw
Frey, S., Atkisson, C. (2020) A dynamic over games drives selfish agents to win-win outcomes. Proc. R. Soc. B.28720202630. https://doi.org/fnq2
Hilbert, M., Barnett, G., Blumenstock, J., Contractor, N., Diesner, J., Frey, S., González-Bailón, S., Lamberson, P.J., Pan, J., Peng, T.-Q., Shen, C., Smaldino, P.E., van Atteveldt, W., Waldherr, A., Zhan, J., Zhu, J.J.H. (2019). Computational Communication Science: A Methodological Catalyzer for a Maturing Discipline. International Journal of Communication, 13, 23. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/10675
Frey, S., Sumner, R.W. (2019) Emergence of integrated institutions in a large population of self-governing communities. PLoS ONE 14(7): e0216335. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0216335
Cook, A., Frey, S. (2018) “Reading in Time: Cognitive Dynamics and the Literary Experience of Shakespeare,” In L. Magnusson, & D. Schalkwyk, (Eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Strimling P., Frey, S. (2018) Emergent Cultural Differences in Online Communities’ Norms of Fairness. Games and Culture. http://doi.org/gd84gz
Frey, S., Donnay, K., Helbing, D., Sumner, R. W., Bos, M. W. (2018) The rippling dynamics of valenced messages in naturalistic youth chat. Behavior Research Methods. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-018-1140-6
Frey, S. & Goldstone, R.L. (2018) Cognitive mechanisms for human flocking dynamics. Journal of Computational Social Science 1:349. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42001-018-0017-x
Frey, S., Albino, D. K., & Williams, P. L. (2018). Synergistic Information Processing Encrypts Strategic Reasoning in Poker. Cognitive science. http://doi.org/gdzpj6
Frey, S., Bos, M. W., and Sumner, R. W. (2017) “Can you moderate an unreadable message? ‘Blind’ content moderation via human computation” Human Computation 4:1:78–106. DOI: 10.15346/hc.v4i1.5
Frey, S., Goldstone, R. L. (2016). “Does successful small-scale coordination help or hinder coordination at larger scales?” Interaction Studies 17(3). Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/is.17.3.03fre
Baghestanian, S., Frey, S. (2016). “GO Figure: Analytic and strategic skills are separable.” Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics 64(10) 71–80. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214804315000774
Frey, S. (2014). “Mixed human/entity games and the anomalous effects of misattributing strategic agency.” Adaptive Behavior 22(4) 266-276, http://adb.sagepub.com/content/22/4/266.abstract
Galati, A., Bourchas T., Siby, S., Frey S., Olivares M., Mangold S. (2014) "Mobile-enabled delay tolerant networking in rural developing regions" In IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC 2014).
Frey, S., Goldstone, R. L. (2013). Cyclic game dynamics driven by iterated reasoning. PLoS ONE 8(2): e56416. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0056416. http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0056416
Goldstone, R. L., Wisdom, T. N., Roberts, M. E., Frey, S. (2013). Learning along with others. In B. H. Ross (Ed.), Psychology of Learning and Motivation 58. (pp. 1-45). Academic Press, MA, USA.
Willer, R., Sharkey, A., Frey, S. (2012) Reciprocity on the Hardwood: Passing Patterns among Professional Basketball Players. PLoS ONE 7(12): e49807. http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0049807
Conference Proceedings
Chakraborti, M., Atkisson, C., Stanciulescu, S., Filkov, V., and Frey, S. (in review). Do We Run How We Say We Run? Formalisation and Practice of Governance in OSS Communities.
Chakraborti, M., Atkisson, C., Stanciulescu, S., Filkov V., Frey S. (in review) Conversation Mining and Semantic Analysis in OSS Communities for Governance Research
Yin, L., Chakraborti, M., Yan, Y., Schweik, C., Frey, S., & Filkov, V. (2022). Open Source Software Sustainability: Combining Institutional Analysis and Socio-Technical Networks. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction. 6(CSCW2):404. pp1–23. https://doi.org/jq58
Frey, S., Zhong, Q. Q., Bulat, B., Weisman, W. D., Liu, C. M., Fujimoto, S., Wang, H., Schweik, C. M. (2022) Governing online goods: Maturity and formalization in Minecraft, Reddit, and World of Warcraft communities. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact, 6(CSCW2):300, 1–25, https://doi.org/jq59
Schneider, N., De Filippi, P., Frey, S., Tan, J. Z., & Zhang, A. X. (2021). Modular politics: Toward a governance layer for online communities. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 5(CSCW1), 1-26. https://doi.org/gwvx
Frey, S., Krafft, P. M. and Keegan, B.C. (2019). "This Place Does What It Was Built For": Designing Digital Institutions for Participatory Change. Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Interact. 3, CSCW, https://doi.org/10.1145/3359134
Müller, S., Solenthaler, B., Kapadia, M., Frey, S., Klingler, S., Mann, R. P., Sumner, R. W., Gross, M. (2015). "HeapCraft: Interactive Data Exploration and Visualization Tools for Understanding and Influencing Player Behavior in Minecraft." In Motion in Games (ACM MIG)
Müller, S., Kapadia, M., Frey, S., Klingler, S., Solenthaler, B., Mann, R. P., Sumner, R. W., Gross, M. (2015). “Statistical analysis of player behavior in Minecraft.” In Foundations of Digital Games (FDG), Pacific Grove, California.
Müller, S., Frey, S., Kapadia, M., Klingler, S., Mann, R. P., Solenthaler, B., Sumner, R. W., Gross, M. (2015)."Quantifying and Predicting Collaboration in Shared Virtual Worlds." In Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment 2015 (AAAI AIIDE)
Huber, R., Scheibehenne, B., Chapiro, A., Frey, S., Sumner, R. (2015). "The Influence of Visual Salience on Video Consumption Behavior: A Survival Analysis Approach." ACM Web Science, Oxford-United Kingdom, 2015.
Deaton, S., Frey, S. (2009). Investigations of attractor behavior over the decay of modular RBNs. 10th European Conference on Artificial Life. Available at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1005.3510
Datasets
Yan, Y., Frey, S., Zhang A., Filkov, V., Yin, L. (2023) GitHub OSS Governance File Dataset MSR2023 Data & Tool Showcase MSR23data-98 https://doi.org/kvm4
Frey, S. (2019) "Emergence of complex institutions in a large population of self-governing communities" [Dataset]. Dryad. https://doi.org/gccz
Theses
Frey, S. (2013) “Complex collective dynamics in human higher-level reasoning. A study over multiple methods,” Dissertation, Indiana University. Available at http://gradworks.umi.com/35/99/3599175.html
Grants, Honors, and Awards
Major grants, honors, and awards
2023 International Centre for Mathematical Sciences (ICMS). Compositional Game Theory for Governance Design. $30,000
2022 Google Open Source Foundation. Workshop: OSS Sustainability Perspectives. $45,000
2022 NSF Designing Accountable Software Systems (DASS). Collaborative Research: Transitioning OSS projects to accountable community governance. $749,927
2021 Smart Contract Research Forum. Culture building in DAOs. $10,000
2020 Mozilla Foundation and Creative Commons. Grant for the Web: The Metagovernance Project. $80,680
2020 NSF Growing Convergence Research (GCR). Collaborative Research: Jumpstarting Successful Open-Source Software Projects With Evidence-Based Rules and Structures. $3,400,000
2019 NSF Research Coordination Network (RCN). Coordinating and Advancing Analytical Approaches for Policy Design. $460,000
2018 University of California Office of the President: Innovative Learning Technology Initiative, Social Science with Online Data. $109,000
2015 Neukom Postdoctoral Fellowship, Neukom Institute for Computational Science, Dartmouth College. 3 yrs of support.
2012 Indiana Space Grant Consortium (NASA/INSGC) Fellowship. 1 yr of support.
2010 NSF IGERT Traineeship. 2 yrs of support.
2006 NECSI Advanced Training Program Student Fellowship. 2 yrs of support.
Other grants, honors, and awards
2022 IEEE ACSOS 2022, Outstanding Service Award
2020 ICA 2020, Top paper, Computational Methods section
2019 ACM CSCW 2019. Honorable mention award for best paper
2014 Indiana University Cognitive Science Program. “Outstanding dissertation” award.
2017 Neukom Institute for Computational Science Workshop Support. $11,000
2012 NSF IGERT Summer Internship Program. One summer of support.
2012 NSF IGERT Summer Travel Award. One month of travel support.
2012 NSF Travel Grant & Research Fellowship. One month of travel support.
2011 NSF EAPSI. One summer of support.
2011 JSPS Summer Program Fellowship, Hokkaido University. One summer of support.
Talks
Selected Presentations
Frantz, C., Siddiki, S., Kamkhaji, J., Frey, S. "Advancing the Study of Policy Design and Dynamics through Computational Methods" ECPR Standing Group of Regulatory Governance, University of Antwerp, Belgium, 2023/07/13
Jhaver, S., Frey, S., Zhang, A. "Decentralizing Platform Power: a Design Space of Multi-level Governance in Online Social Platforms" Platform Governance Research Network (PlatGovNet), 2023/04/03
Frey, S., Bowen, C. "Chair: Transitioning resource systems from benevolent dictatorship to community management" International Association for the Study of the Commons, Nairobi, Kenya, 2023/06/23
Frey, S. Roundtable on The Networked Leviathan by Paul Gowder, Northwestern University, 2023/11/03
Frey, S. "Panelist: Standardization in Institutional Grammar Research" Institutional Grammar Research Initiative Conference, 2022/06/21
Frey, S. "Chair: Computational Representations of Commons Institutions" IASC Knowledge Commons, 2021/06/9
Frey, S. “Panelist: Machine Coding with the Institutional Grammar.” The Institutional Grammar Workshop. Warsaw, Poland and Virtual 2020/08/06
Frey, S. “Learning to govern” The building blocks of Web 3.0 Towards a Declaration of Interdependence of Cyberspace, Cambridge, MA, 2020/03/03
Frey, S. "Moderator: Metagovernance: A Governance Layer for Online Communities", RadicalxChange, 2020/19/06
Schneider, N., De Filippi, P., Frey, S., Tan, J. Z., & Zhang, A. X. "Modular Politics" Workshop on Distributed Infrastructure for Common Good, Delft, The Netherlands, 2020/12/7
Siddiki, S., Frey, S. “Panelist: A Pedagogical Model for Instruction on Data Analytics for Public Policy Panel” Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA), Los Angeles, CA, 2019/17/10
Frey, S. “An automated comparative analysis of 5000 small scale self-governing online resource institutions” Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) Chicago, IL, 2019/04/04
Frey, S. “Panelist: Ostrom and the Design of Digital Institutions” Navigating the challenges of Multi-Site Research Workshop at ACM Computer-Supported Collaborative Work. NY, NY, 2018/03/11
Invited Talks
Large-scale computational institutional analysis. Computational Social Science, Stanford University; Invited lecture at BIGSSS Summer Schools in Computational Social Science, University of Groningen; Ostrom Workshop Colloquium, Indiana University; Workshop on Governing Knowledge Commons, Villanova University.
Governance of online designer societies. Major Transitions Workshop, CRI Paris; Recomputing Social Science, UC Davis; SEGS Talk, University of Vermont; Panelist talk, IEEE Self-Adaptive and Self-Organizing Systems; Invited talk, Global Footprint Network; Ostrom Workshop Colloquium, Indiana University; ASPIRE Research Symposium Keynote, UC Davis; MZES Sociology Seminar Series, University of Mannheim; Augmented Intelligence Workshop, Indiana University; Evolutionary Anthropology Colloquium, UC Davis.
Visualizing very-high dimensional spaces. ASPIRE Research Symposium Keynote, UC Davis
Social cognition with large online game datasets. Keynote at MUCSC, Indiana University; MIS Research Seminar, MSU East Lansing; Invited talk, BBN Technologies; Invited talk, Champlain College; Physics Colloquium, UC Davis; Center for Mind and Brain Idea Blitz, UC Davis; Psychology Colloquium, UC Davis.
Behavioral science of user-generated content. Tech talk, Disney Research.
Information theory and social information processing. Physics Dept. Colloquium, UC Davis; Invited speaker, Networks in Cognitive Science Satellite at NetSci2019
Expert information extraction and encryption in online poker. School of Computer Science Colloquium, McGill University; Behavioral Studies Colloquium, ETH Zürich; Economic Psychology, University of Basel; Business Administration, University of Zurich; Disney Data Analytics Conference, The Walt Disney Company.
Cyclic game dynamics driven by iterated reasoning. International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2 2015), Helsinki, Finland; Helbing Lab, ETH Zürich; Crisis Lab, IMT Lucca; Behavioral Group, University of Warwick; Cognition, Action, & Perception Speaker Series, University of Cincinnati; 2012 NSF/IGERT Competition, NSF IGERT, Washington DC; Behavioral Economics Seminar, Indiana University; Behavioral Sciences Group, Hokkaido University; Animal Behavior Colloquium, UC Davis.
Teaching
Courses
2020–present Social Science with Online Data (CMN 152V), UC Davis
2019–present Web Science Research Methods (CMN 212), UC Davis
2018–present Simulating Communication Processes (CMN 151/213), UC Davis
2021–2022 Data Visualization (CMN/POL/PSC/SOC 12), UC Davis
2017–2018 Science of Anarchy (QSS 30.07), Dartmouth College
2018 Experimental study of social behavior (PSYC 63), Dartmouth College
2015 Social Modeling and Mechanism Design (D-GESS 851-0585-37L), ETH Zurich
Advising
PhD advisees Qiankun Zhong (communication; current)
Beril Bulat (communication; current)
Mahasweta Chakraborti (communication; current)
Postdoctoral supervisees
Brett Culbert (art history; current)
Nicholas Vincent (computer science and communication)
Master's advising Sailendra Bonagiri
Namrata Kasaraneni
Aniket Bangiwar
Stephan Müller
Bachelor's theses Hannah Wang (communication)
Benjamin Packer (computer science)
Álvaro Marco (computer science)
Academic Service
Journal reviewing: Policy Studies; Nature Human Behavior; Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences; Journal of the Royal Society: Interface; PLoS ONE; Complexity; Evolutionary Human Sciences; MethodsX; Systems Research and Behavioral Science; IEEE Access
Cognition; Cognitive Science; Behavior Research Methods; Perspectives on Psychological Science; Journal of Experimental Psychology: General; Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition; Topics in Cognitive Science (TICS); Frontiers in Systems Neuroscience; Adaptive Behavior; Multivariate Behavioral Research
Journal of Communication; Communication Research; Communication Methods and Measures; Media and Communication; Media Psychology; Computational Communication Research; Behaviour & Information Technology; Communications Psychology; Computer Mediated Communication
Conference reviewing: International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC), International Communication Association (ICA), International Conference on Social Informatics (SocInfo), Computer Human Interaction (CHI) Late Breaking Work, International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2), Cognitive Futures, European Conference on Cognitive Science, Cognitive Science Society, ACM SIGGRAPH, Collective Intelligence, ACM Transactions on Autonomous and Adaptive Systems (TAAS), Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), ACM Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).
Grant reviewing: National Science Foundation (NSF) 2019, 2021, 2021, 2022, 2023; Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Study, 2020; Association for Information Technology Trust, 2019
Organizing: Program Committee, International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) 2025; Invited Expert, BIGSSS Summer Schools in Computational Social Science: Social Cohesion 2022; Sponsorship Chair, IEEE ACSOS 2022; Steering Committee, IASC Knowledge Commons 2021; Program Committee, WebScience 2019; Program Committee, IC2S2 2015-2018; Program Committee, CHI LBW 2017; Program Committee, SocInfo 2016; Organizer, "Science of Counter-Earth" Workshop, Hanover, NH, USA 2017; http://sites.dartmouth.edu/neukom/counter-earth/; Guest editor, Grassroots Economic Organizing, Ostrom Special Issue: http://geo.coop/vol-2/issue-9
Media and Public Outreach
Popular articles and talks
Frey, S., Benefield, G., Bernier, C., Bos, M., Budak, C., DeDeo, S., Farzan, R., Hill, B., Jacobs, A., Savage, S., Shaw, A. (2019) "Org-scale analytics: Today’s startups build societies. Do it right." Towards Data Science. Available at https://towardsdatascience.com/org-scale-analytics-todays-startups-build-societies-do-it-right-4f6185e81482
Frey, S. (2019) "Bringing data to the science of community: Minecraft Edition" Towards Data Science. Available at https://towardsdatascience.com/bringing-big-data-to-the-science-of-community-minecraft-edition-25938f43961a
Frey, S., House, P., (2016). "The Unexpected Humanity of Robot Soccer." Nautilus 39.
Available at http://nautil.us/issue/39/sport/the-unexpected-humanity-of-robot-soccer
Hinchliffe, J.P., Frey, S. (2014). "Shakespeare’s Genius is Nonsense." Nautilus 18.
Available at http://nautil.us/issue/18/genius/shakespeares-genius-is-nonsense
Frey, S. (2011) TEDxBloomington. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoO2WQMzCm4
Press
Intentional community. Featured in The New Yorker, 7 July 2021.
Governance of designer societies. Interview on Columbia Journalism Review Galley, 30 March, 2020; Featured in New York Times Magazine, 14 April 2016; Featured in Sacramento Bee, 17, June 2019.
Cyclic dynamics driven by iterated reasoning. Interviewed in BBC Radio 4 documentary, 5 Aug, 2015; Featured on Smithsonian Magazine blog, 21 Feb, 2013; Featured on NBCnews.com, 19 Feb, 2013; Interviewed in Indiana University Alumni Magazine.
Other Activities
2022–present Advisory Board of Vital Arts, advocating affordable artist housing in the Bay Area
2005–present Hobbyist in printing and book arts
2022 Inventor on filed patent, area of co-living governance software
2021 Statistical consulting for wine analytics research project
2018 Survey consulting for sexual communication startup
2015–2017 Consulting for major media company, engagement in user-generated content
2015 Inventor on two filed patents, area of predictive video analytics
2008–2013 Co-founder and board of directors, Bloomington Cooperative Living Inc., a system of intentional communities in Bloomington, IN
2010–2013 Board of directors, National Association of Students of Cooperation (NASCO)
2008–2010 Paid to solve puzzles for Slocum Collection of puzzles at IU Lilly Library
2006 Fired by Buddhists; scientific career begins