Current Research
 

  My research is primarily driven by variations of the question of how individuals relate to groups, especially in the context of decision-making. I often investigate formalized relationships between groups and individuals, such as those found in voting systems, algorithmic decision-making systems or even scientific communities.


Peer Reviewed Publications
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The paper evaluates the Condorcet Jury Theorem under ambiguity. It explores the effects on voter competence assumption when voters are faced with situations they can’t ascribe a single probability anymore. 

Other Publications

Wollesen, B (forthcoming in Comprehensive Philosophy of Science) "Voting Systems"

The chapter examines voting systems both as procedures and as models, raising broader methodological questions concerning the standards by which research on them ought to be assessed. It considers how voting systems function as instruments of conceptual clarification, descriptive models of collective decision-making, and tools for normative reasoning about voting and aggregation.

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Under Review

A Paper about the Principle of One Person One Vote and Strategic Voting

Strategic voting is widely regarded as something to be discouraged, yet the normative grounds for its discouragement remain remarkably underdeveloped. This paper revisits a concern raised by Satterthwaite (1973): that differences in voters’ strategic skills may undermine the principle "one person, one vote" (OPOV) by turning elections into "games of skill". Taking this concern as a starting point, I argue that strategic voting is problematic insofar as it redistributes power in ways that conflict with the commitments of OPOV.

A Paper about Generalisations and the Harm for Marginalisedd Groups
(with Shira Ahissar)

In everyday conversations, we  provide generalised advice of the form “doing x will lead to the desired result y”, without realising the resulting social implications. In this paper, we demonstrate the grave social harm caused by such generalisations, showing they disproportionately disadvantage marginalised groups. 

Human Agency Under Algorithmic Prediction: An Experimental Study of
Decision Making in Newcomb’s Problem (with Jan Woike)

Algorithms in our present environment predict our future decisions and behavior, an some of these predictions will lead to interventions. Here, we investigate how partial knowledge about predictions and interventions affects individuals whose decisions are predicted. In six studies (N = 1, 274), we confronted participants with variants of Newcomb’s Problem, which creates a conflict between decision principles in response to a prediction.

Completed Mansuscripts​

Models, Measurement and Manipulability 

Different metrics of manipulability  disagree on their assessment on how vulnerable a particular collective decision mechanism is to manipulation. I contend that concerns about manipulation in the case of voting can be grounded in different value judgements. I then demonstrate that these distinct value commitments can render different metrics appropriate for normative guidance in the selection of voting rules.  The paper calls for the developments of multiple metrics for the vulnerability to manipulation along with different value judgments that underlie the evaluation of manipulation.
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Feel free to contact me for a copy!​


Work in Process
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A Paper About Boundedly Rational Agents and Strategic Voting
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  This is a paper based on a simulation that I wrote which models voters as boundedly rational. They vote repeatedly (such as reacting to polls) and use a simple rule to make strategic decisions instead of orthodox rational choice theory. The results suggest, contrary to the literature, that giving voters more votes will not necessarily lead to more strategic effects on the outcome. 

A Paper About the Communication Structure of Cross-disciplinary Communities

This paper investigates how the structural organization of scientific communities shapes the transfer and broad adoption of models across disciplinary boundaries. 
Building on Zollman’s results concerning the trade-offs between connectivity and epistemic performance, I extend the analysis from network-level properties to role-sensitive structures, asking how the placement of brokers and translators within partially segregated communities influences collective epistemic success.

A Paper about Foundation Models and Their Transfer in Science

A Paper About Gerrymandering


Paul Klee Pavillon der Zahlen, 1918 (Pavilion of Numbers)