Lingfei Wu to Present at the DINS Speaker Series

Lingfei Wu, Assistant Professor in DINS, will discuss “Aging Scientists and Slowed Advance” at the second virtual DINS Speakers Series event of the 2021-22 Academic Year. The event will be held on Friday, October 29, 2021 at 12:30pm. Fill out this form to receive the Zoom event information. Dr. Wu, a computational social scientist, will discuss the relationship between the demographic age structure and the character of scientific advances.

What is the relationship between the demographic age structure of science and the character of scientific advances? Prior research focuses on star scientists, their dates, and rates of breakthrough success. Analyzing more than 2 million scholars across 46 million articles over the last 40 years, we show that for all fields, periods, and impact levels, scientists’ research ideas and references age with career age, and they become much more likely to criticize or ignore emerging work. Early success accelerates scientist aging; while shifting institutions and fields and collaborating with young scientists slow it. These patterns aggregate within fields such that those with a higher proportion of older scientists experience a markedly lower churn of ideas and stronger gravity towards the established literature, suggesting a universal link between aging, action, and advance.

Lingfei Wu is a computational social scientist interested in discovering how innovation is made in Science and Technology and effective team mechanisms that accelerate this process.