IC2S2 2026 · Burlington, Vermont

Oral presentation and lightning talk

Abstract

Two IC2S2 2026 presentations in Burlington: a lightning talk on friendship and hierarchy in cooperation, and an oral presentation on cohort fit, homophily, and STEM retention.

Date

July 28-31, 2026

Location

Burlington, Vermont, USA

Event

International Conference on Computational Social Science (IC2S2)

IC2S2 2026 was one of those conference weeks that sat right at the intersection of the things I like most about computational social science: sharp methods, generous conversations, and the chance to see how different empirical worlds speak to each other.

In Burlington, I presented two projects connected by a common question: how social structure shapes opportunities, cooperation, and persistence.

The first was a lightning talk on Friendship Modulates the Expression of Hierarchy in Cooperation, a project about how status and friendship jointly structure cooperation among children in elementary school classrooms. Using a classroom-based behavioral experiment with token exchanges, we show that cooperation can follow hierarchical patterns, but that friendship - especially mutual recognition - can attenuate how those inequalities are expressed.

The second was an oral presentation on Heterogeneity and Homophily in the Academic Retention of STEM Students, a project about the early peer environment students encounter when they enter higher education. Using large-scale Chilean administrative data, it examines how individual fit with the entry cohort and cohort heterogeneity are associated with persistence and dropout, especially in STEM programs.