Damián Blasi

Position: ICREA Research Professor at the Center for Brain & Cognition, School of Engineering, Pompeu Fabra University (since Nov 2023). Concurrent roles include Research Associate at Harvard University’s Culture, Cognition, and Coevolution Lab and External Researcher at Yale University’s Human Relations Area Files. Previously held positions include Harvard Data Science Initiative Fellow (2021–2023), Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Zürich (2015–2019), and Maury Green Fellow at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute (2019–2020).

Education: Ph.D. in Computer Sciences (Summa Cum Laude) from the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences (Leipzig, Germany, 2018), M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Physics from Balseiro Institute (Argentina, 2004–2009).

Research Interests: Evolution of languages, cultural evolution, computational linguistics, cognitive science, and their intersections with AI, genetics, and public health. Focuses on language diversity’s role in human cognition, behavior, and cultural adaptation, particularly in the context of human-machine interaction. Transdisciplinary methods include data science, evolutionary anthropology, and natural language processing.

Key Achievements: Developed the D-PLACE database, co-authored foundational studies on language complexity and sound symbolism, and pioneered research on global equity in language technology. Recipient of multiple prestigious awards, including the Branco Weiss Fellowship (2020) and the Glushko Dissertation Prize (2020).

Grants & Leadership: Led projects on cultural evolution, language technology equity, and the Bantu language expansion. Served as associate editor for Journal of Language Evolution and Open Mind, and reviewer for major journals like Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Labs & Teams: Active in the Center for Brain & Cognition, Culture, Cognition, and Coevolution Lab (Harvard), and the Human Relations Area Files (Yale). Collaborates internationally on projects involving UNESCO, the Santa Fe Institute, and the Max Planck Society.