Nagurney takes part in World Science Festival panel

Anna Nagurney, the John F. Smith Memorial Professor at the Isenberg School of Management, took part in the panel “Traffic: From Insects to Interstates,” on June 12 as part of the World Science Festival in New York City.

The other invited panelists were professors Iain Couzin of Princeton University and Mitchell Joachim of Columbia University. Journalist Robert Krulwich of ABC and NPR was the panel moderator.

The session discussed traffic from different perspectives — mathematical, engineering, physical, behavioral, managerial and biological — and sought to answer the question, “Can marching ants, schooling fish, and herding wildebeests teach us something about the morning commute?”

Nagurney spoke about New York Mayor Bloomberg’s initiative closing Broadway from 42nd Street to 47th as being the inverse of the Braess paradox. The traffic panel was covered by Nature and Discover magazines.

The day before the panel, she and Couzin appeared on “The Brian Lehrer Show” on public radion station WNYC.

This is the second year of the World Science Festival, which was founded by Columbia professor Brian Greene and his journalist wife, Tracy Day. Its mission is to cultivate and sustain a general public informed by the content of science, inspired by its wonder and to engage with its implications for the future. The program included interviews with Nobel laureates and a spectrum of scientists, readings by award-winning authors, performances, and talks by celebrities, including Alan Alda. It concluded with an all-day, outdoor public science fair on June 14.

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World Science Festival Traffic panel

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July 1, 2009.