Jacob G. Foster

Jacob G. Foster is a computational sociologist interested in the social production of collective intelligence, the evolutionary dynamics of ideas, and the co-construction of culture and cognition. After studying mathematical physics at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, Foster received his Ph.D. in Physics (with a specialty in Complexity Science) from the University of Calgary. He then spent three years as a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago before moving to UCLA in 2013. His work has appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, American Sociological Review, NeurIPS, Science, Phil Trans B, Poetics, Sociological Science, and Social Networks, among other venues. He was an Infosys Member at the Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social Sciences in 2020-2021.