Dr. Jobst Heitzig

Dr. Jobst Heitzig holds a PhD in mathematics from Hannover University and has worked as a scientific officer with the German National Statistical Office, as a data warehouse analyst with the German Development Bank KfW, and as a freelance statistical software trainer with SAS. Since 2010 at PIK, he was a project lead of an EIT Climate-KIC project on Power Grid Stability (SWIPO), co-speaker of the flagship project copan – coevolutionary pathways, and has organized several interdisciplinary international workshops and conferences.

Group decisions, cooperation, game theory

• Efficient democratic decisions via nondeterministic proportional consensus (working paper, social app, seminar talk video, PIK-internal lecture video, conference talk for general scientific audience)
• Bottom-Up Formation of a Global Climate Coalition of Farsighted Strategic Players (CFCC15 poster, conference paper, slides for Oslo working group, DPG poster, GAMES2012 poster, theory paper)
• Heitzig J, Lessmann K, Zou Y (2011) Self-enforcing strategies to deter free-riding in the climate change mitigation game and other repeated public good games. PNAS 108:15739–15744. doi:10.1073/pnas.1106265108 (Press release, Commentary, Guardian article, Huffington Post article, Climatewire article)
• Some chance for consensus (Soc Choice Welf, 2010)
• Interdisciplinary approaches to cooperation (book chapter)

Development of data analysis methods

• Moving Taylor Bayesian Regression (MoTaBaR)
• Study of climate data using...
• non-linear time-series analysis
• complex networks
• how to deal with nodes of different size (slides)
• example (download this and open in g**gle earth!)

Conceptual models of human-nature co-evolution

Power grid stability and resilience (Slides from a 2015 keynote lecture)

Dr. Heitzig has published on game theory, complex networks theory, dynamical systems theory, environmental economics, social choice, statistical methods, general topology, confidentiality protection, combinatorics, and environmental ethics, and has edited two special issues for the journal EPJ ST.

Publications according to Google Scholar

FutureLab on Game Theory & Networks of Interacting Agents

copan – Coevolution of human-environment systems in the Anthropocene

MATH+ Berlin Mathematics Research Center – Transforming the World through Mathematics

Past:

OPTES – Optimal test designs (Projekt im Forschungsnetz Zoonotische Infektionskrankheiten)

DominoES – Domino Effects in the Earth System: Can Antarctica tip climate policy?

• I co-organized the SC4AI'23 workshop on Social Choice for AI Ethics and Safety, 6–8 Dec 2023 at UC Berkeley
• Podcast on Satisficing as a safer decision heuristic for intelligent agents
• Podcast on Game Theory, Climate Ethics, Gaia Theory, and the Arts (in German)
• PNAS article with Yuki Asano on social learning of savings behavior, leading to economic inequality and business cycles (paper, PIK press release/tweet, Oxford U press release/tweet)
• Talk on Fair & Efficient Voting Methods in Renowned International Seminar on Social Choice (video)
• PIK lecture on Fair & Efficient Voting Methods (for PIK members: slides, paper draft and video here)
• Public Lecture 4 Future, Uni Bielefeld: Was hat Nachhaltigkeit mit Billard, Gänseblümchen, Pachinko und dem Papst zu tun? (video, in German)
• Paper on Conditional Commitments in revision after seven desk rejects (public talk slides here, internal slides here)
• Networking tour in Budapest, Cologne and Gent, with talks on Coalition Formation and Responsibility (slides)
• FutureLab GaNe kicks off!
• New article on Coalition Formation in Nature Climate Change (PIK news item)
• (intranet only: slides of responsibility talk from the research days)
• Telegrafenbergkrimi 1 erschienen (Bericht in den Potsdamer Neuesten Nachrichten)
• News item on the EPJ ST issue on Health, Energy and Extreme Events in a Changing Climate co-edited by me
• Press release on the pyunicorn package
• Radio lecture on climate science and policy in the Radio feature "Klima|Anlage" on Deutschlandradio Kultur (dort nach "Klima" und "Anlage" suchen, dann das Suchergebnis "Klangkunst" auswählen)
• Radio interview on rbb radioeins (in german)
• German ScienceSlam finals performance (in german, english slides available)

• Erdős number: 2 (via Marcel Erné)
• Bacon number: 4 (via Muß ein Herrenwäscheverkäufer homosexuell sein? – Dieter Rita Scholl – Meeting Venus – Glenn Close – The Paper – Marisa Tomei – Loverboy – Kevin Bacon)
• hence Erdős–Bacon number: 2+4=6 (according to Wikipedia, only four people are known to have a smaller Erdős–Bacon number, which I doubt)
• according to the Mathematics Genealogy, my almost complete lineage is:
  Nicolaus Copernicus → Georg Joachim von Leuchen Rheticus → Valentin Otto → Melchior Jöstel → Ambrosius Rhodius → Christoph Notnagel → Johann Andreas Quenstedt → Michael Walther Jr. → Johann Pasch → Johann Andreas Planer → Christian August Hausen → Abraham Gotthelf Kästner → Georg Christoph Lichtenberg → Johann Tobias Mayer → Enno Heeren Dirksen → Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi → Emmy Amalie Noether → Max Deuring → Max Koecher → Marcel Erné → Jobst Heitzig, which is by no means special since in their database almost 2/3 of all mathematicians go back to Copernicus!