Emma Zajdela

Emma Zajdela is an Intelligence Community Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Princeton University in the High Meadows Environmental Institute and School of Public and International Affairs. She holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University, where she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow and Buffett Institute Global Impacts Fellow.

Emma’s research focuses on developing mathematical models to understand and predict complex social phenomena. The applications of her work span topics from scientific collaboration to poker, autonomous vehicles, and fashion trends using a variety of methods including game theory, network science, and dynamical systems. At Princeton, she has been studying how to foster international cooperation for global environmental issues, focusing on the structure of institutions bridging science, policy, and diplomacy. She is also interested in understanding the role of technology in optimizing scientific ecosystems to foster cross-border collaborations and innovation.

In addition to her research activities, Emma has close to a decade of experience working in the field of science diplomacy. Since 2016, Emma has worked with the Malta Conferences Foundation, a non-profit organization that uses science diplomacy in the Middle East, where she currently serves as Treasurer and member of the Board of Directors. In January 2024, she represented Princeton University as an official observer at the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Emma has been invited to lecture around the world about her work including in Egypt, Austria, Germany, South Africa, and Colombia. She is passionate about bringing her love of math and science to young people and the general public. A classically trained violinist, she loves learning languages, of which she speaks five: English, French, Spanish, Russian, and most recently, Arabic.