Sebastian Benthall
Research Director at New York University School of Law
New York, United States
Summary
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Senior🎓
Top SchoolSebastian Benthall is a research director and interdisciplinary engineer with 18 years of experience at the intersection of AI, privacy, and information law, currently based in New York. He leads NSF- and DARPA-funded projects that combine heterogeneous agent and agent-based modeling with decision theory to study the social and financial impacts of digital technology. A hands-on researcher and developer, he has professionalized open-source toolkits like Econ-ARK/HARK and launched SHARKFin to integrate household decision models with realistic financial market agents. His background blends rigorous PhD training in information systems with practical software engineering—from backend contributions to GeoNode’s map management to refactoring scientific code for robustness and testability. He advises model-governance startup Monitaur and directs work that explicitly connects formal modeling, policy implications, and deployable software. Less obvious: he routinely mentors economists and engineers to translate academic models into production-ready code that regulators and practitioners can use.
18 years of coding experience
12 years of employment as a software developer
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Management Information Systems and Services, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Management Information Systems and Services at UC Berkeley School of InformationBA, Cognitive Science, BA, Cognitive Science at Brown University
Stackoverflow
103reputation
9kreached
0answers
2questions
Github Skills (14)
django10
model-building10
python10
modeling10
model-driven10
model-driven-development10
documentation8
linear-interpolation8
html-template8
javascript7
e-mail6
passwords6
jinja26
css5
Programming languages (16)
Github contributions (5)
econ-ark/HARK
Sep 2019 - Jan 2023
Heterogenous Agents Resources & toolKit
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:3 releases, 165 reviews, 812 commits in 3 years 4 months
Contributions summary:Sebastian's commits focused on improving code documentation, replacing 'exec' statements with more robust alternatives, fixing bugs, and enhancing the usability of existing code within the HARK library. They addressed issues related to function calls and parameter handling in various models, particularly within the consumption-saving domain. The contributions also included the refactoring of the model to align with a new DiscreteDistribution class for improved code structure.
satagentseconomicsagent-based-modeling
GeoNode/geonode
Jun 2010 - Aug 2012
GeoNode is an open source platform that facilitates the creation, sharing, and collaborative use of geospatial data.
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:251 commits in 2 years 1 month
Contributions summary:Sebastian primarily contributed to the back-end functionality of the GeoNode project, focusing on the map and layer management features. Their work involved implementing and modifying view logic, specifically within the `geonode/maps/views.py` file, to enable new functionalities such as updating map metadata and controlling default layer styles. They also worked on the user interface, updating layer templates and related javascript to reflect changes made on the back end.
pythondjangosharingfacilitatesgis
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