Chris Danforth
Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics
PRONOUNS he/him
- Ph.D., University of Maryland, College Park
- B.S. in Mathematics & Physics, Bates College
Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Area(s) of expertise
Computational Social Science, Complex Systems, Chaos
BIO
Chris is an applied mathematician interested in modeling a variety of physical, biological, and social phenomenon. He has applied principles of chaos theory to improve weather forecasts and developed a real-time remote sensor of global happiness using messages from Twitter. Danforth co-runs the Computational Story Lab with Peter Dodds.
Courses
- MATH 2522 - Linear Algebra
- MATH 3737 - Numerical Analysis
- MATH 3766 - Chaos, Fractals & Dynamical Systems
- MATH 5230 - Graduate Ordinary Differential Equations
- MATH 6989 - Graduate Seminar
Bio
Chris is an applied mathematician interested in modeling a variety of physical, biological, and social phenomenon. He has applied principles of chaos theory to improve weather forecasts and developed a real-time remote sensor of global happiness using messages from Twitter. Danforth co-runs the Computational Story Lab with Peter Dodds.
Courses
- MATH 2522 - Linear Algebra
- MATH 3737 - Numerical Analysis
- MATH 3766 - Chaos, Fractals & Dynamical Systems
- MATH 5230 - Graduate Ordinary Differential Equations
- MATH 6989 - Graduate Seminar
Projects
: a visual comparison of phrase popularity in 150 billion tweets
: a population scale measure of daily happiness
Research & Press
“Inside the lab that’s quantifying happinessâ€
Profile of our research group in
“Has Twitter just had its saddest fortnight ever?â€
Story on Hedonometer in
“Instagram photos reveal predictive markers of depressionâ€
in EPJ Data Science, by New York Times
“The emotional arcs of stories are dominated by six basic shapesâ€
in EPJ Data Science, by The Atlantic
“Human language reveals a universal positivity biasâ€
in PNAS, by New York Times