Dr Christopher Kops (J.C.)
Dr. (Jan) Christopher Kops is an Assistant Professor of Mathematical Economics & Game Theory at the School of Business and Economics of Maastricht University.
What sparked Christopher's academic career was him managing to generalize an existing result in Number Theory while writing his Diploma thesis in Mathematics. For his PhD, he switched to Economics, finishing the structured PhD program (GSEFM) at Goethe University in Frankfurt with a PhD thesis on the behavioral foundations of choice and decision theories. Part of his PhD was supported by a scholarship of the GSEFM. After obtaining his PhD, he won the Jaffray Prize at RUD 2021 (together with Illia Pasichnichenko) awarded for outstanding paper by young researcher(s). Before starting his position in Maastricht, Chris was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cologne and Heidelberg University, where he won the Teaching Award 2019 of the Student Association in Economics for his "Game Theory" Lecture.
Chris' research spans from axiomatic choice and decision theory, to game theory, and experimental economics. The red thread running through his work is a strong focus on characterization and identification. His recent projects generalize perfect equilibrium, model distortions through (mis)interpretations (with applications to AI) and lay out how to identify behavioral types from aggregate choice data.
Chris has a broad teaching experience. The courses he teaches at SBE include Linear Algebra (EOR), Life Insurance II (EOR), Orientation (EOR), as well as the math parts of Quantitative Methods I (IB & EBE) and Mathematics & Statistics I (BE).
Other Activities:
- Member of the QE Management Team
- Member of Board of Assessors
- PhD Co-supervisor to Zhilin Xu & Yanru Sun