Curious Minds: from building knowledge networks to inciting political resistance

What is curiosity? How does it work? And where does its seemingly limitless power to shape the mind and reshape society come from? Drawing on emerging work in cognitive neuroscience and network theory, Dani Bassett discusses enacting a practice of curiosity with a flexible brain.

• Bioengineering

Why Capping Congestion Pricing is a Slow Road to Nowhere

"You can see that if the role of congestion tax revenue is also to raise money for new roads and better public transportation (which should really be the main use), capping the tolls just means that someone else has to pay these taxes, based on another criteria which is not related to road usage or value of time," writes Gad Allon.

• Operations Information and Decisions

Separating Better Data from Big Data: Where Analytics Is Headed

The Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative (WCAI) is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year and has seen every step of that evolution. Knowledge@Wharton sat down with Eric Bradlow, Peter Fader and Raghuram Iyengar to discuss how the field has developed over time, and what they expect to be the key trends over the next decade.

• Marketing

Engineering dean elected to the American Philosophical Society

Vijay Kumar, the Nemirovsky Family Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, has been elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. Founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743 for the purpose of “promoting useful knowledge,” the society is the oldest learned society in the United States.

Penn Engineering Announces Four New Scholarly Chairs

Warren Center faculty affiliate Zachary Ives has been named the Adani President’s Distinguished Professor. The Adani President’s Distinguished Professorship was established in 2015 by a grant from the Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited.

• Computer and Information Science

Shivani Agarwal: Looking at Machine Learning from All Angles

It is now an everyday occurrence to see customized recommendations while shopping online, and uncannily personalized sidebar ads while browsing a website. Both of these marketing tools are powered by machine learning, a field of study that extends to many other parts of society as well.

• Computer and Information Science

Fear of Losing Status, not Economic Hardship, Drove Voters in 2016 Presidential Election

Strong new evidence published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences from Diana Mutz supports the idea that many Trump voters are feeling left behind, but not for reasons related to personal financial problems or economic anxiety about the future.

• Communication
• Political Science

When crises come, ethically challenged firms such as Uber are most vulnerable

"Was it any surprise that Uber, and not the dozen or so other participants in the autonomous race for autonomous driving, caused the first pedestrian fatality?" writes Kevin Werbach in an article for The Inquirer.

• Legal Studies & Business Ethics

How Your Brain Makes Articles Go Viral

Why does one article spread like wildfire through social media and another—seemingly similar—doesn’t? How does your brain decide what is valuable enough to read and share? Emily Falk explains how specific regions of the brain determine how valuable it would be to share information.

• Communication
• Marketing
• Psychology

What Wharton Faculty Would Have Asked Mark Zuckerberg

This week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg endured hours of grilling from two Congressional committees to answer questions on why Facebook didn't do a better job protecting the privacy of user data from unauthorized access by Cambridge Analytica. Eric Bradlow, Peter Fader, and Kevin Werbach respond.

• Legal Studies & Business Ethics
• Marketing