About
I am an Associate Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Toronto, the cofounder and CEO of AI edtech company All Day TA, the cofounder of the NBER Innovation Research PhD Boot Camp, a member of the board of editors of the Journal of Economic Literature, a Faculty Research Fellow at the NBER, and an Academic Advisor to the Longitudinal Expert AI Panel. I was previously a visiting professor at Duke Fuqua and the Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar, and an Associate Editor of Management Science. My CV is here.
I hold master's degrees in pure mathematics, economics, and managerial strategy, and a PhD in Managerial Economics and Strategy from Northwestern University. My research applies game theoretic models, economic history, and empirical data to study the creation, diffusion, and regulation of innovation, in particular artificial intelligence. As part of my AI work, I've given executive talks and done consulting with dozens of corporations and governments worldwide. I love creating new AI-driven tools and benchmarks. I am particularly concerned about trust in academic research and the future of the university: see my eight rule catechism for trust in institutions. Relatedly, I care about developing a culture of progress: see my eight rules for a progress mentality.
I regularly discuss these topics at @Afinetheorem and on LinkedIn. I was once well-known for a weblog on modern economic research called A Fine Theorem and am (very slowly) working on a popular book, based on this website, about how economic theory and game theory help explain the social world. I can be reached at kevin.bryan@utoronto.ca.
Outside my academic work, a few of my interests:
I have traveled to 191 countries, flying over 1.2 million miles on 140 airlines to over 300 airports since 2002. I am a definite airline geek, one of those people who is excited to fly from Nukus, Uzbekistan because it's possible to fly on a rare Ilyushin Il-114.
I'm a big fan of languages, and am decent enough in French, Spanish, and Mandarin Chinese (though I was much better at the latter in 2005 when I worked in Beijing!)
My favorite destinations include: Slovenia, Burma (before its democratic opening), the Loire valley, Gozo, Iceland, Dominica, Kyoto, Lofoten, Oaxaca, Sana'a, Georgian Svaneti, Benin, Istanbul, the Hunza Valley.
The most obscure trips: Burundi, Transnistrian Moldova, Nauru, Chad, East Timor, the Dempster Highway up to the Arctic Ocean, Brunei, Equatorial Guinea, Comoros, the Paraguayan Gran Chaco, the Marshall Islands.
The ones that everyone always asks about: North Korea (in late 2005, with the third group of Americans given visas post-1950), Iraq (during the week of Obama's first election), Somalia, DR Congo, South Sudan, crossing from Cameroon to the CAR then to Congo by motorized pirogue, and the incredibly friendly pre-war Syria.
The best part of all of these trips is long, rambling walks, which are, and I am being quite serious, the source of all of my best research ideas: Thoreau was right! You can safely assume that I am always willing to come visit for an academic talk no matter how obscurely located your university or institute might be!
As I was born in Dorchester, Mass., I have an undying love for Boston's professional sports teams, especially the Patriots. For a brief spell during and after college, I played semipro football; my teams the Boston Bandits and the Virginia Ravens, respectively, won the New England and Mid-Atlantic championships. I am still willing to play essentially any sport at the drop of a hat.
I originally planned to major in graphic design as a student, and I still like to follow graphic art and architecture. In Toronto, I designed my own house, with a parametric brick facade that contains a graph-theoretic color theorem in the design.
As a graduate student in Chicago, I lived in Mies van der Rohe's famous Lake Shore Drive apartments. I love the photographs of Michael Wolf, the architectural work of Julius Shulman and the color field paintings of people like Gene Davis, and the furniture of people like Ib Kofod-Larsen, Jean Gillon, and Arne Vodder.