Expertise
Alexander Christensen is an assistant professor of psychology and human development who uses network and data science to model dynamical systems in psychology. He views psychological phenotypes as dynamic complex systems: dynamic meaning they change across time and complex meaning the interaction between their components and other systems are often difficult to discern. Further, he views people as teleological meaning they can change the expression of their phenotype using goals, motivations, and values.
Broadly, his work aims to develop dynamic network science tools that capture person-specific variation that can be used to make more accurate measurements (e.g., how depression is quantified) and predictions (e.g., whether someone will become depressed) as well as make better generalizations to broader populations to uncover underlying mechanisms that govern human behavior. These tools are accented by data science techniques such as natural language processing to develop more idiosyncratic representations of who people are.
Part of his mission is to advance the application and transparency of quantitative methods. He maintains, authors, and contributes to several packages in R including {EGAnet}, {latentFactoR}, {NetworkToolbox}, and {SemNeT}.