---
id: people/uri-wilensky
about:
  label: Uri Wilensky
  description: >-
    Learning scientist and computer scientist at Northwestern University who
    created NetLogo in 1999, the agent-based modelling environment used widely
    in classrooms and research.
  tags:
    - agent-based
    - NetLogo
    - teaching
    - complex systems
person:
  affiliation: Northwestern University
  role: learning scientist and computer scientist
  homepage: 'http://ccl.northwestern.edu/Uri.shtml'
provenance:
  origin: agent
  sources:
    - title: >-
        Uri Wilensky, CCL Director (Center for Connected Learning and
        Computer-Based Modeling)
      url: 'http://ccl.northwestern.edu/Uri.shtml'
    - title: Uri Wilensky (Wikipedia)
      url: 'https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uri_Wilensky'
  created: '2026-11-02'
  reviewed: '2026-11-02'
  reviewed_by: 'Claude, from the sources listed'
  status: draft
---
Uri Wilensky is the Lorraine H. Morton Professor of Learning Sciences, Computer Science and Complex Systems at Northwestern University.[^1] He founded and directs the Center for Connected Learning and Computer-Based Modeling (CCL), co-founded the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, and co-directs the joint PhD programme in computer science and learning sciences.[^1] He studied mathematics and philosophy at Brandeis and mathematics at Harvard, and took his PhD at the MIT Media Lab.[^2]

He first developed NetLogo in 1999.[^2] His lab maintains it, and his page calls it the most widely used agent-based modelling software, with hundreds of thousands of users in research and education. He has published more than 300 articles and more than 500 agent-based models.[^1] His theory of "restructurations" holds that representing knowledge in computational media changes how people think and learn: students can make sense of a complex system by building and exploring a model in which agents follow simple rules and large patterns emerge.[^2] With William Rand he wrote *An Introduction to Agent-Based Modeling* (MIT Press, 2015).[^1] His awards include the 2016 ISDDE prize for excellence in design, for NetLogo, and the 2025 Yidan Prize for education research, and he is a fellow of the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[^1]

He is the maker of [NetLogo](/engines/netlogo/).