Gerald R. Ford School of Public
Policy
735 S. State St.
University of Michigan, Weill Hall
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
(734) 764-3490 (phone)
(734) 763-9181 (fax)
axe@umich.edu
Robert Axelrod is the William D. Hamilton Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at the University of Michigan. He has appointments in the Department of Political Science and the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Prior to coming to Michigan he taught at the University of California, Berkeley (1968-74). He holds a BA in mathematics from the University of Chicago (1964), and a PhD in political science from Yale (1969). In 2014, he was awarded the National Medal of Science, the "nation's highest honor for scientific achievement and leadership."
He is best known for his interdisciplinary
work on the evolution of cooperation which has been cited more than 30,000 times. His current research interests include international security and sense-making. Among his
honors and awards are membership in the National Academy of Sciences,
a five year MacArthur Prize Fellowship, the Newcomb Cleveland Prize of
the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences for an outstanding
contribution to science, and the National Academy of Sciences Award for
Behavioral Research Relevant to the Prevention of Nuclear War.
He served as President of the American Political Science Association (2006-07). In 2015 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Harvard University.
Axelrod has consulted
and lectured on promoting cooperation and harnessing complexity for the
United Nations, the World Bank, the U.S. Department of Defense, and various
organizations serving health care professionals, business leaders, and
K-12 educators.
Selected publications
Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984).
Robert Axelrod (ed.), Structure of Decision (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976).
Robert Axelrod and Douglas Dion, "The Further Evolution of Cooperation," Science, 242 (9 December1988), pp. 1385-1390.
William D. Hamilton, Robert Axelrod and Reiko Tanese, "Sexual Reproduction as an Adaptation to Resist Parasites," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 87 (May 1990), pp. 3566-3573.
Robert Axelrod, The Complexity of Cooperation: Agent-Based Models of Competition and Collaboration (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).
Robert Axelrod and Michael D. Cohen, Harnessing Complexity: Organizational Implications of a Scientific Frontier, (New York: Free Press, 2000; paperback edition New York Basic Books, 2001).
Last updated: May, 2018