Scott Page

Scott E Page’s research focuses on the function of diversity in complex social systems, the potential for collective intelligence, and the design of institutions for meeting the challenges of a complex world. 

Professor Page holds a Distinguished University Professorship from the University of Michigan, the university’s highest academic honor.  He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.  Scott has been a fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, the recipient of multiple NSF grants, as well as grants from the MacArthur Foundation, the James S McDonnell Foundation, and the Air Force MURI program.

Scott is an external faculty member of the Santa Fe Institute, where for over three decades along with John Miller he has run a summer workshop on computational social science.  For the past twenty years, Scott has also organized the NBER -CEME Decentralization Conference, and currently serves as a non resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institute and in an advisory role to the Systems Dynamics Society.

In 2021, he helped to launch and now serves as chief editor of the interdisciplinary journal Collective Intelligence.   

Scott has written five books and is author of more than one hundred research papers in a variety of fields including: game theory, economics, political theory, formal political science, sociology, psychology, philosophy, physics, public health, geography, computer science, and management.  

His first book, The Difference, was released in 2025 as a Princeton University Press Classic. His most recent book,The Model Thinker, was published by Basic Books in November 2018, and has been an Amazon Best Seller in more than ten categories and has been translated into five languages.  His previous books include, the Axios award winning, The Diversity Bonus, published in September 2017 with Princeton University Press and the Mellon Foundation, and Complex Adaptive Social Systems (2009).

Scott has filmed two video series for The Great Courses and his online course Model Thinking has attracted over a million views. A frequent public speaker, Scott has presented to the CIA, NASA, Bloomberg, Google, Boeing, the IMF, Genentech, Gilead, and AT Kearney.  Scott has also been a featured speaker at The New York Times New Work Summit, Google Re:Work, The World Economic Forum – Davos, and The Aspen Ideas Festival.  Scott has consulted with the Federal Reserve System, the White House office of Personnel, Yahoo! Ford, DARPA, Procter and Gamble, BlackRock, AB InBev and NuBank. 

Scott's students and post docs have gone on to take positions at leading schools including MIT, Northwestern, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, and UCLA. 

A native of Yankee Springs ,Michigan, and a graduate of Thornapple-Kellogg High School, Scott holds a BA in mathematics from The University of Michigan, and MA from The University of Wisconsin, and an MS and PhD in managerial economics and decision sciences from the Kellogg School at Northwestern University. Scott lives in Ann Arbor, MI, with his wife, University of Michigan Professor of Political Science and Public Policy Jenna Bednar and their dogs Oda and Roland.  They have two adult sons, Orrie and Cooper.