Contact

drghirlanda@gmail.com (Stefano Ghirlanda, Ph.D.) — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Get in Touch #

I welcome inquiries about consulting engagements, advisory calls, and expert-witness work. Please reach out by email and I will respond within one business day.

Email: contact@dataworks.consulting

drghirlanda@gmail.com (Stefano Ghirlanda, Ph.D.) — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Profile #

Quantitative behavioral scientist and former tenured Full Professor of Psychology with a mathematical-physics background. I build computational models of how humans and animals learn, decide, and influence one another, and turn behavioral and cognitive complexity into models, simulations, and data products organizations can act on. Two decades of research leadership, ~$6M in competitive grants, two Princeton University Press books, and 70+ peer-reviewed papers with 6,500+ citations.

drghirlanda@gmail.com (Stefano Ghirlanda, Ph.D.) — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Headline #

I help AI and technology teams evaluate whether their models, benchmarks, and behavioral claims actually hold up — bringing 25 years of computational modeling and learning theory to the question of what machines can and can’t do. Former tenured Full Professor of Psychology with a mathematical-physics background, two Princeton UP books, 70+ papers, and >6500 citations.

Primary Focus: AI/ML Evaluation & Behavioral-Science Auditing #

AI benchmark and capability evaluation. Do the claims hold up? I stress-test AI/LLM benchmarks, cognitive-capability claims, and behavioral evaluations against rigorous baselines — the same methodology I’ve applied to 25 years of animal and human cognition research.
Reinforcement learning & learning-theoretic analysis. Deep grounding in the mathematics of how agents learn: neural networks, RL, associative models, agent-based simulation. I evaluate whether a system’s “learning” is what it’s claimed to be.
Quantitative due diligence. Auditing models, statistical claims, and data pipelines for AI investors, product teams, and legal/regulatory contexts. Turning messy evidence into defensible verdicts.

Also: Behavioral Modeling & Cultural Dynamics #

Human behavior & decision modeling: consumer choice, habit formation, preference dynamics, social influence, belief change.
Cultural and population dynamics: measuring how media, products, and ideas spread; modeling adoption, polarization, and cumulative change.

What I Bring #

Mathematical & statistical depth. M.Sc. in mathematical physics; fluent across neural networks, reinforcement learning, agent-based models, statistics, and stochastic processes.
Engineering practice. Production-grade work in R (Shiny, data.table), C (numerical computing, custom neural-network libraries), and Python; comfortable in Unix, git, SQL.
Research leadership. PI or co-PI on grants totaling ~$6M (NSF, European Commission, Wallenberg Foundation); managed distributed teams and multi-year, multi-institution programs.

Engagement Modes #

Short advisory calls · scoped analytical projects · model design and prototyping · expert witness / due diligence · fractional chief scientist for early-stage teams.

DataWorks Consulting