Luc is a trained computer/data scientist with a foot in the social
sciences. In this intersection, he initially concentrated on
computational models of social systems and has created the GROWLab
agent-based simulation platform. To become more policy relevant, he
subsequently spent several years collecting and analyzing data on ethnic
groups and their participation in conflict processes. In this respect,
he has co-created the Ethnic Power Relations (EPR) dataset, made
landmark publications (Beyond Fractionalization: Mapping Ethnicity onto
Nationalist Insurgencies) together with Lars-Erik Cederman, and led the
development of the GROWup federated data platform (winner of the J.
David Singer Data Innovation Award in 2015). Luc is currently project
leader at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) and CTO
at Macrofocus, a company specialized in interactive data visualization.
He holds a master's degree in computer science and telecommunication.
Cederman, Lars-Erik, Yannick Pengl, Dennis Atzenhofer, and Luc Girardin. 2025. “
Nationality Questions and War: How Ethnic Configurations Affect Conflict Within and Between States.”
Journal of Conflict Resolution.
Cederman, Lars-Erik, Yannick Pengl, Luc Girardin, and Carl Müller-Crepon. 2024. “
The Future Is History: Restorative Nationalism and Conflict in Post-Napoleonic Europe.”
International Organization: 1–34.
Girardin, Luc, Christoph Haefeli, and Peter Schult. 2024. “
Interactive Visualization of Electrical Power Flow Using a Schematic Map.”
The Cartographic Journal.
Cederman, Lars-Erik, Paola Galano Toro, Luc Girardin, and Guy Schvitz. 2023. “
War Did Make States: Revisiting the Bellicist Paradigm in Early Modern Europe.”
International Organization: 1–39.
Cederman, Lars-Erik, Luc Girardin, and Carl Müller-Crepon. 2023. “
Nationalism and the Puzzle of Reversing State Size.”
World Politics.
Schvitz, Guy, Seraina Rüegger, Luc Girardin, Lars-Erik Cederman, Nils Weidmann, and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch. 2022. “
Mapping The International System, 1886-2017: The CShapes 2.0 Dataset.”
Journal of Conflict Resolution 66(1): 144–61.
Vogt, Manuel, Nils-Christian Bormann, Seraina Rüegger, Lars-Erik Cederman, Philipp Hunziker, and Luc Girardin. 2015. “
Integrating Data on Ethnicity, Geography, and Conflict: The Ethnic Power Relations Data Set Family.”
Journal of Conflict Resolution 59(7): 1327–42.
Cederman, Lars-Erik, Luc Girardin, and Julian Wucherpfennig. 2014. “
Exploring Inequality and Ethnic Conflict: EPR-ETH and GROWup.” In
Peace and Conflict 2014, eds. David A. Backer, Jonathan Wilkenfeld, and Paul K. Huth. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.
Wucherpfennig, Julian, Nils B. Weidmann, Luc Girardin, Lars-Erik Cederman, and Andreas Wimmer. 2011. “
Politically Relevant Ethnic Groups across Space and Time: Introducing the GeoEPR Dataset.”
Conflict Management and Peace Science 28(5): 423–37.
Cederman, Lars-Erik, and Luc Girardin. 2010. “
Growing Sovereignty: Modeling the Shift from Indirect to Direct Rule.”
International Studies Quarterly 54(1): 27–48.
Cederman, Lars-Erik, Luc Girardin, and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch. 2009. “
Ethnonationalist Triads: Assessing the Influence of Kin Groups on Civil Wars.”
World Politics 61(3): 403–37.
Cederman, Lars-Erik, and Luc Girardin. 2007a. “
Beyond Fractionalization: Mapping Ethnicity onto Nationalist Insurgencies.”
American Political Science Review 101(1): 173–85.
Cederman, Lars-Erik, and Luc Girardin. 2007b. “
Toward Realistic Computational Models of Civil Wars.” In Paper prepared for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the American Political.
Girardin, Luc, and Lars-Erik Cederman. 2007. “
A Roadmap to Realistic Computational Models of Civil Wars.” In
Advancing Social Simulation: The First World Congress, eds. Shingo Takahashi, David Sallach, and Juliette Rouchier. Tokyo: Springer, 59–69.
Weidmann, Nils, and Luc Girardin. 2007. “
Introducing GROWLab: A Toolkit for Layered Agent-Based Modeling.” In
AGENT 2007 Conference, Chicago, IL,.
Weidmann, Nils, and Luc Girardin. 2006. “
GROWLab: A Toolbox for Social Simulation.” In
First World Congress on Social Simulation,.
Weidmann, Nils B., and Luc Girardin. 2005. “
Technical Note: Evaluating Java Development Kits for Agent-Based Modeling.”
Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 8(2).
Brodbeck, Dominique, and Luc Girardin. 2003a. “
Trend Analysis in Large Timeseries of High-Throughput Screening Data Using a Distortion-Oriented Lens with Semantic Zooming.” In
IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization 2003, Seattle, WA: IEEE, 74–75.
Brodbeck, Dominique, and Luc Girardin. 2003b. “
Using Multiple Coordinated Views to Analyze Geo-Referenced High-Dimensional Datasets.” In
International Conference on Coordinated & Multiple Views in Exploratory Visualization, London UK.
Brodbeck, Dominique, and Luc Girardin. 2003c. “
Visualization of Large-Scale Customer Satisfaction Surveys Using a Parallel Coordinate Tree.” In
IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization 2003, Seattle, WA: IEEE, 197–201.
Brodbeck, Dominique, and Luc Girardin. 2002. “
Atom’O’Scope: Interactive Visualization of a Nanotechnology Experiment.” In
3rd CODATA Euro-American Workshop on Information Visualization, Presentation and Design, Paris.
Girardin, Luc, and Dominique Brodbeck. 2001. “
Interactive Visualization of Prices and Earnings around the Globe.” In
IEEE Symposium on Information Visualization 2001, San Diego, CA: IEEE.
Girardin, Luc. 1999. “
An Eye on Network Intruder-Administrator Shootouts.” In
1st Workshop on Intrusion Detection and Network Monitoring (ID ’99), The USENIX Association, 19–28.
Girardin, Luc, and Dominique Brodbeck. 1998. “
A Visual Approach for Monitoring Logs.” In
Proceedings of the 12th Systems Administration Conference (LISA ’98), Boston, MA: The USENIX Association, 299–308.
Girardin, Luc. 1996. “
Mapping the Virtual Geography of the World-Wide Web.” In
Fifth International World-Wide Web Conference, Paris.
Girardin, Luc. 1995. “
Cyberspace Geography Visualization.” NDIT/FPIT (Eduswiss).
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), Usenix, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Swiss Informaticians Society (SI), Free Software Foundation (FSF), American Political Science Association (APSA).
