# MIT Connection Science **Entity class:** Research initiative **Institution:** Massachusetts Institute of Technology ## Definition **MIT Connection Science** is a research initiative founded by [[wiki/Alex Pentland|Alex “Sandy” Pentland]] that uses network science, behavioral data, analytical systems, and digital infrastructures to understand and improve real-world social systems. Its work spans social networks, mobility, public health, finance, digital identity, privacy, trust, computational social science, and resilient institutions. ## Why This Institution Is Included Connection Science demonstrates that sensing, population modeling, network dynamics, prediction, privacy, and institutional design can exist inside one research program. It is a close methodological neighbor to the collection's effort to understand human environments as increasingly observable, modelable, and computationally intelligible. ## Relationships - **founding faculty director:** [[wiki/Alex Pentland|Alex “Sandy” Pentland]]. - **research vocabulary:** [[wiki/Social Physics|Social Physics]], [[wiki/Computational Social Science|Computational Social Science]], [[wiki/Network Science|Network Science]], [[wiki/Behavioral Sensing|Behavioral Sensing]], and [[wiki/Data Governance|Data Governance]]. - **collection:** [[wiki/Intellectual Neighborhood of the Counterterrorism Collection|Intellectual Neighborhood of the Counterterrorism Collection]]. ## Sources / Provenance - [MIT Sociotechnical Systems Research Center, “CX – Connection Science”](https://ssrc.mit.edu/programs/cx-connection-science/) (accessed 2026-09-23). - [MIT Connection Science, research catalog](https://connection.mit.edu/research/) (accessed 2026-09-23). **As of:** 2026-09-23