New Leadership for New Science
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Omidyar Fellow, 2010-2013
Rogier Braakman has long been interested in big-picture questions like how did order in the universe – stars and planets, life, us – emerge? But his early academic training in chemistry did not always encourage such thinking. The hybrid field of astrochemistry allowed him, as he puts it, to take a more historical approach to chemistry, and to seek insight into how the world came to be.
A more general study of complex systems was a logical next step for Rogier, and it brought him to SFI. He now uses chemical networks to study how chemistry evolves in, and into, life. He also is interested in how the chemical organization of systems changes as one zooms in from interstellar clouds to biological organisms.
Eventually he hopes to take what he learns at SFI and step back once more: first to use chemical networks for a different perspective on interstellar and interplanetary chemistry, and then to compare chemical systems to other complex systems – perhaps social, economic, or technological ones.
Rogier was a postdoctoral fellow at SFI prior to his Omidyar Fellowship. He holds a Ph.D. in chemical physics from the Caltech, where he specialized in interstellar chemistry. He earned a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Amsterdam. He attended SFI’s Complex Systems Summer School in Beijing in 2006.
Omidyar Fellow, 2012-2015
“For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by everything,” says Evandro Ferrada. This lack of focus was something of a problem. No single field provided him with anything close to what he felt would be a satisfying way to explore the universe.
He went through a period of disquiet, seeking the wisdom of scholars, but the epiphany he hoped for never came. Finally, Evandro faced the deadline his university had set for declaring a field of undergraduate study. He chose biochemistry – “just a nice combination of some of the things I liked,” he says.
From time to time Evandro wondered how life might have been different had he chosen poetry. Or mathematics. Then an astounding thing happened while studying the evolutionary biology. He realized it didn’t matter which discipline he had chosen. “The artistic and scientific frameworks are the same,” he says. “They’re just different ways of looking at the world.” He is convinced that there are patterns of change common to seemingly disparate systems.
He aims to contribute to a unified theory of evolutionary biology, beginning his work at SFI by examining genotype-phenotype maps of macromolecular systems. Eventually he hopes to unravel some of the connections between science and art.
Evandro holds a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Zurich and a professional title in biochemistry from the Universidad Católica de Chile. He attended SFI’s Complex Systems Summer School in Argentina in 2008.
Paul Hooper's research at SFI seeks to understand and explain human social structure.
On the one hand, this means understanding the evolutionary origins of those features of human sociality that stand out among primates and other mammals, such as long-term marriage, extensive parental and grandparental support, and high levels of cooperation between both related and unrelated individuals. On the other hand, it also means understanding variation in social structure across human societies, from mobile hunter-gatherers to complex urban civilizations. His research asks, to what extent can major patterns of variation in societal organization across history be explained by a finite set of basic principles of biology and economics?
To accomplish these goals, Paul combines ethnographic fieldwork in Amazonia with cross-cultural analysis and mathematical modeling. His work at the Institute examines the biological and economic processes underlying the formation of human social networks, as well as the emergence of social inequality, political hierarchy, and leadership.
Paul holds a PhD in evolutionary anthropology from the University of New Mexico, and an AB in near eastern studies from Princeton.
Omidyar Fellow, 2010-2013
Scientific laws do not always apply to the real world exactly as we expect them to. James O’Dwyer finds himself drawn to these instances, intrigued by what he calls their elements of surprise. When theory provides a situation that goes beyond – or even against – our intuition, he says, the contradiction provides the means to refine previously held ideas.
James is exploring theoretical ecology, incorporating elements of math, physics, and biology to better understand the interactions of living things in their common environments. In part he is investigating universality, seeking cases when ecological theories hold across seemingly different systems. From this research, he believes, patterns might be discovered that shed light on practical issues such as the loss of biodiversity, or climate change.
He has found that transdisiplinary approaches do not always meet with clear understanding among the wider scientific community. When he gave his first talk at SFI, however, he felt that everyone in the room "got it."
His appointment as an SFI Omidyar Fellow was preceded by a postdoctoral fellowship in ecology at the University of Oregon. He holds a master’s degree in mathematics and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Cambridge University as well as a master’s in physics from Durham University.
Omidyar Fellow
I am an anthropologist by training who has several related interests. One is the analysis and modeling of coupled natural and human systems over long periods, especially in the U.S. Southwest. Another is historical anthropology, or the integration of historical linguistics, human biology, archaeology, and oral tradition to better-understand the histories of non-literate societies. I am also interested in applications of concepts and methods from cognitive linguistics in historical linguistics and archaeology. Finally, I am interested in the role of political processes in the evolution of human diversity; especially the ways discourse and power interact with material conditions and individual rationality to promote or discourage social transformation.
Omidyar Fellow, 2011-2014
Charles Perreault always has studied humans; he decided to become an archaeologist at the age of six. Years later, his world travels emphasized to him just how unique we humans are. Unlike many other animal species, “humans are basically everywhere…from the Sahara to the Arctic,” he says, and the variations in human behaviors – from food acquisition to family structures – are far greater than the variations in the behaviors of other animals.
Most social scientists attempt to explain the specialness of the human species through concepts and theories applicable only to humankind. Charles, on the other hand, is trying to explain “human-ness” by using theories that apply across species. In his doctoral work at UCLA, for example, he used classical paleontological concepts to examine human cultural evolution.
SFI provided him with the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues from many disciplines, he says, and to incorporate methods and ideas into his work that “are not typically available in the standard social science environment.
While at SFI he will pursue a deeper understanding of cultural evolution through the use of theoretical models and cross-cultural comparisons. As part of this work, he will compare the changes brought by evolutionary forces on both cultural and biological phenomenon.
Charles holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from UCLA and a master’s in anthropology from the Université de Montréal.
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