Scott E. Page is a nonresident senior fellow in the Center for Sustainable Development at Brookings. His research focuses on the function of diversity in complex social systems, the potential for collective intelligence, and the design of institutions for meeting the challenges of a complex world.
He is a distinguished university professor at the University of Michigan, the university’s highest academic honor. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford and the recipient of multiple National Science Foundation grants, as well as grants from the MacArthur Foundation, James S. McDonnell Foundation, and the Air Force’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiatives (MURI) program.
Page has been an external faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute, where for over three decades along with John Miller he has run a summer workshop on computational social science. For the past 20 years, Page has organized the NBER-CEME Decentralization Conference. He also currently serves in an advisory role to the System Dynamics Society and as a scientific adviser to CrowdSmart.
In 2021, he helped to launch and now serves as chief editor of the interdisciplinary journal Collective Intelligence.
He has written five books and is author of more than 100 research papers in a variety of fields including game theory, economics, political theory, formal political science, sociology, psychology, philosophy, physics, public health, geography, computer science, and management. His first book, “The Difference,” was released in 2025 as a Princeton University Press Classic. His most recent book, “The Model Thinker,” was published by Basic Books in November 2018, has been an Amazon bestseller in more than 10 categories, and is being translated into five languages. His previous books include the Axios award-winning “The Diversity Bonus,” published in 2017 with Princeton University Press and the Mellon Foundation, and “Complex Adaptive Social Systems,” published in 2009.
Page has filmed two video series for The Great Courses and his online course “Model Thinking” has attracted over 1 million views. A frequent public speaker, he has presented to the CIA, NASA, Bloomberg, Google, Boeing, the IMF, Genentech, Gilead, and AT Kearney. He has also been a featured speaker at the New York Times New Work Summit, Google Re:Work, the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, and the Aspen Ideas Festival. He has consulted with the Federal Reserve System, the White House Office of Personnel, Yahoo, Ford, DARPA, Procter and Gamble, BlackRock, AB InBev, and NuBank.
A native of Yankee Springs, Michigan, and a graduate of Thornapple-Kellogg High School, Page holds a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics from the University of Michigan, a Master of Arts from the University of Wisconsin, and Master of Science and doctoral degrees in managerial economics and decision sciences from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University.
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Current Positions
- John Seely Brown Distinguished University Professor of Complex Systems, Social Science, and Management, University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
- Williamson Family Professor of Management, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
- Professor of Political Science, Complex Systems, and Economics College of Literature Science and the Arts (Courtesy) University of Michigan–Ann Arbor
- External Faculty Member, Santa Fe Institute
- Faculty Affiliate, Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Income Dynamics
- Scientific Adviser, CrowdSmart
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Education
- B.A., Mathematics, University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (1985)
- M.A., Mathematics, University of Wisconsin–Madison (1988)
- M.A., Managerial Economics, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University (1990)
- Ph.D., Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University (1993)