Arnold Urken - Professor
	Professor Head, Dept of Social Sciences Email: aurken@stevens.edu Phone:  (201) 216-5394 Fax: (201) 216-8245 Office: Morton 112
Research Interests History of voting theory; Electronic voting machines; Collective decision making, computers, and error; Condorcet and competence in social choice; Port security; Sensor fusion

The historical, analytical, and experimental aspects of voting theory can all be useful in defining and analyzing voting problems. This broad perspective has helped me look at problems from a different point of view and gain insights into patterns that I would have otherwise not noticed. Voting techniques are used in a variety of disciplines concerned with coordinating, pooling, and communicating information. Seeing these problems as voting problems directs our attention to methods for understanding and managing complexity.

Education

A.B., Goverment, Oberlin College, 1963
M.A., Political Science, Rutgers University, 1964
Research Certificate, Philosophy of Science, London School of Economics, 1965
Ph.D., Political Science, New York University, 1973.

Principal Publications

"Social Choice Theory and Distributed Decision Making", in R. Allen, ed., Proceedings of the International Conference on Office Information Systems, Palo Alto: IEEE/ACM, 1988.

"Coordinating Agent Action via Voting," Proceedings of the International Conference on Office Information Systems, Cambridge: IEEE/ACM, 1990.

"Condorcet–Jefferson: un chaînon manquant dans la théorie du choix social? In Condorcet: mathmaticien, conomiste, philosophe, homme politique, edited by Pierre Crépel and C. Gilain, Paris: Minerve, 1989.

"The Condorcet–Jefferson Connection and the Origins of Social Choice Theory," Public Choice, 1991.

"The Impact of Computer–Mediated Voting," National Conference on the Social and Ethical Aspects of Computing, Southern Connecticut University, The Research Center on Computing and Society, 1992.

"Did Jefferson or Madison Understand Condorcet's Social Choice Theory?" Public Choice, 1992, with Iain McLean.

"Voting Methods in Context: The Development of a Science of Voting in French Scientific Institutions, 1699–1803," Rochester: International Conference on Social Choice and Welfare, 1994.

Classics of Social Choice, University of Michigan Press 1995, ed. and trans. with Iain McLean.

La réception des oeuvres de Condorcet sur le choix social 1794–1803: Lhuilier, Morales, et Daunou, Nouvelles Recherches sur Condorcet, Paris: Minverve, 1996.

"Using Revealed Preference Analytics to Improve Complex System Management," Conference on Systems Integration, March, 2003.

"Time, Error, and Collective Decision System Support," International Conference on Telecommunications Systems, October, 2003.

"Error, Coordination, and Network–Centric Port Security," Network–Centric Operations Applied to the Campaign Against Terrorism, http://howe.stevens.edu/Research/stevens_report.html, September, 2004.

"Collective Decisions, Error and Trust in Wireless Networks," ASCAC, Tucson AZ, December, 2004.

Honors & Awards

National Science Foundation Secure electronic transactions, 2003

State of New Jersey Computer Software Development Grants Fellow, Computer Policy, 1988

National Endowment for the Humanities Translation of Condorcet's 1785 Essai 1989

State of New Jersey Fellow in Computing Policy

National Science Foundation Collective decision theory, 1985

Oxford University History of voting theory, 1993

London School of Economics Research Fellowship, 1964

National Science Foundation Doctoral Research 1973

Principal Courses Taught

HSS 127 - Political Science I
HSS 128 - Political Science II
HSS 371 - Computers & Society

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