April 2026

We’re excited to hear that our (Dr. Julie Linsey, Samuel Blair, Claire Kaat, and Henry Banks) 2024 paper on applying ecological network analysis techniques to improve our understanding of human network functioning (makerspaces in this case) was one of the top 10 cited Wiley papers in the INCOSE Systems Engineering journal.

The paper looks at 3 metrics commonly used by ecologists to study mutualistic ecosystems, finding they provide valuable quantitative information about the functioning of academic engineering makerspaces when modeled as bipartite student-tool interaction networks. Although engineering makerspaces were used as a case study, the results provide support for the use of these metrics as performance indicators for a wide variety of human-engineered networks that can be represented in a bipartite model. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gX596fje