Biography

Iyad Rahwan is an associate professor of media arts and sciences at the MIT Media Lab, where he heads the Scalable Cooperation group. Prior to joining MIT, Rahwan was an associate professor at Masdar Institute, an Abu Dhabi-based research university established in cooperation with MIT. Rahwan's work lies at the intersection of the computer and social sciences. His research explores mechanisms and technologies that promote collective intelligence and large-scale cooperation. In 2012, he led the winning team in the US State Department's Tag Challenge, in which he used social media to locate individuals in remote cities within 12 hours using only their mug shots. Rahwan's work appeared in major academic journals, including Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and was featured in popular media, including The Economist, Scientific American, and New Scientist. A native of Aleppo, Syria, Rahwan holds a PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia.