Laurent Hébert-Dufresne

Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science

LHD obtained his PhD in physics in from Université Laval in Québec. He then branched out in different avenues of complex systems modeling; first in microbial and forest ecology as a James S. McDonnell Foundation Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute, and later as a researcher at the Institute for Disease Modeling. Now at the Vermont Complex Systems Center, he co-leads the modeling arm of the Joint Lab whose research focuses on the interaction and coevolution of structure and dynamics. Recent examples include social networks interacting with the spread of diseases and ideas, the interplay of plant-pollinator dynamics with commercial honeybee colonies and sustainable agriculture, emergence and growth of institutions against societal issues, online interactions between hate and counter speech, or the modeling of learning mechanisms in multidisciplinary team work.

Selected Press

Study probes how to change societal behavior for the better
Discover Magazine, May 20, 2022

Open source ecosystems need equitable credit across contributions
Nature Computational Science, Jan. 14, 2021

How you talk about coronavirus actually impacts its spread
CNET, April 27, 2020

Network epidemiology tutorial by Laurent Hébert-Dufresne
Net-COVID, April 9, 2020

Misinformation about an outbreak like Covid-19 is important public health data
STAT, April 7, 2020

Get the message: Scientists are modeling the way social interactions impact virus outbreaks such as COVID-19
Santa Fe Reporter, April 1, 2020

Laurent Hébert-Dufresne on halting the spread of COVID-19
COMPLEXITY by the Santa Fe Institute, March 25, 2020

UVM gets $1M from Google for open source research
WCAX, Jan. 13, 2020

UVM Complex Systems Center to advance open source research with support from Google
UVM Today, Jan. 10, 2020