Santa Fe Institute

Science Board

The Science Board is responsible for advising on, and evaluating, SFI's general scientific agenda. The Board is composed of distinguished scientists who have demonstrated an interest in, and understanding of, SFI programs. Board composition reflects the diverse research programs of the Institute, including researchers from those disciplines represented by SFI's research themes and potential future areas of interest. Members are appointed by the President on the recommendation of the Science Board and normally serve for renewable three-year terms.

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Philip W. Anderson

Science Board

Professor Emeritus, Princeton University, Physics

Ken Arrow

Science Board

Joan Kenney Professor of Economics and Professor of Operations Research, Emeritus, Stanford University, Dept. of Economics

Elizabeth Bradley

Science Board, External Professor

Professor, University of Colorado, Department of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering

David K. Campbell

Science Board

Professor, Boston University, Physics and Computer and Elec. Engineering

Nazli Choucri

Science Board

Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Political Science

Nina Fedoroff

Science Board, External Professor

Evan Pugh Professor; Distinguished Visiting Professor, Penn State University; King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences

Marc Feldman

Science Board Co-Chair, External Professor

Wohlford Professor, Stanford University, Biological Sciences

Stephanie Forrest

Science Board Co-Chair, External Professor

Professor , University of New Mexico, Computer Science

Murray Gell-Mann

Life Trustee, Science Board

Distinguished Fellow, Santa Fe Institute

Nigel Goldenfeld

Science Board

Swanlund Endowed Chair, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Dept. of Physics; Institute for Genomic Biology

Deborah M. Gordon

Science Board

Professor, Stanford University, Biological Sciences

David Gross

Science Board

Director and holder Frederick W. Gluck Chair Theoretical Physics, KITP, University of California-Santa Barbara

Juris Hartmanis

Science Board

Professor Emeritus, Cornell University

John H. Holland

Trustee, Science Board, External Professor

Professor, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Computer Science/Engineering/Psychology

Arthur M. Jaffe

Science Board

Landon T. Clay Professor of Mathematics and Theoretical Science, Harvard University

Erica Jen

Science Board, External Professor

Mimi Koehl

Science Board

Professor, University of California-Berkeley, Dept. of Integrative Biology

Tim Kohler

Science Board, External Professor

Regents Professor, Washington State University, Anthropology

Arthur Lander

Science Board

Director of Center for Complex Biological Systems & Professor, University of California-Irvine, Developmental and Cell Biology

Richard Lenski

Science Board

Hannah Distinguished Professor and Director, Ecol, Evol Bio & Behavior, Michigan State University, Ecology Evolutionary Biology & Behavior

Simon A. Levin

Science Board

Moffett Professor of Biology, Princeton University, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Richard Lewontin

Science Board

Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Harvard University, Museum of Comp Zoology Emeritus

Peter Littlewood

Science Board

Associate Laboratory Director, Argonne National Laboratory, Physical Sciences and Engineering

Seth Lloyd

Science Board, External Professor

Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

L. Mahadevan

Science Board

Lola England de Valpine Professor of Applied Mathematics, Harvard University, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences

Eric Maskin

Science Board

Adams University Professor, Harvard University, Department of Economics

Baron May of Oxford

Science Board

Professor, Oxford University, Zoology

Lauren Meyers

Science Board, External Professor

Professor and Director, University of Texas at Austin, Section of Integrative Biology and Division of Statistics and Scientific Computation

Melanie Mitchell

Science Board, External Professor

Professor, Portland State University, Computer Science

Harold Morowitz

Science Board Chair, Emeritus, Santa Fe Institute

Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Biology and Natural Philosophy, George Mason University, Krasnow Institute

Mark Newman

Science Board, External Professor

Paul Dirac Collegiate Professor of Physics, University of Michigan, Physics and Complex Systems

George Oster

Science Board

Professor, University of California-Berkeley, Cell and Developmental Biology

Alan Perelson

Science Board, External Professor

Senior Fellow, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mathematical and Theoretical Biology

David Pines

Science Board

Co-Founder, SFI, Distinguished Research Professor of Physics, U C Davis, Research Professor of Physics, UIUC, and Chief Evangelist and Founding Director Emeritus, Institute for Complex Adaptive Matter

Lord Martin Rees

Science Board

Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, Master of Trinity College, University of Cambridge

Thomas Rosenbaum

Science Board

Provost, University of Chicago, Office of the Provost

Donald Saari

Science Board

Distinguished Professor; Director, Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Science, University of California-Irvine, Mathematics and Economics

Jeremy (Jerry) A. Sabloff †

President

Montgomery Slatkin

Science Board

Professor, University of California-Berkeley, Dept. of Integrative Biology

Derek Smith

Science Board

Professor of Infectious Disease Informatics, University of Cambridge, Department of Zoology

Dawn Song

Science Board

Associate Professor, University of California-Berkeley, Computer Science Division

Daniel L. Stein

Science Board

Dean of Science and Professor of Physics and Mathematics, New York University, Physics and Mathematics

Charles Stevens

Science Board, External Professor

Professor and Vincent J. Coates Chair in Molecular Neurobiology, The Salk Institute, Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory

Geoffrey West

Science Board, Science Steering Committee

Distinguished Professor and Past President, Santa Fe Institute

Peter G. Wolynes

Science Board

Bullard-Welch Foundation Professor of Science, Professor of Chemistry, Rice University, Chemistry

Chris Wood †

Vice President, Administration and Director, Business Network

Henry T. Wright

Science Board, External Professor

Professor of Anthropology and Curator of Near Eastern Archaeology, University of Michigan, Department of Anthropology and Museum of Anthropology

† Ex Officio Member

Philip W. Anderson

Science Board

Professor Emeritus, Princeton University, Physics

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Ken Arrow


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Elizabeth Bradley

Science Board, External Professor

Professor, University of Colorado, Department of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering

Liz Bradley did her undergraduate and graduate work at MIT, interrupted by a one-year leave of absence to row in the 1988 Olympic Games, and has been with the Department of Computer Science at the University of Colorado at Boulder since January of 1993. Her research interests include nonlinear dynamics, artificial intelligence, and control theory. She is the recipient of a NSF National Young Investigator award, a Packard Fellowship, a Radcliffe Fellowship, and the 1999 student-voted University of Colorado College of Engineering teaching award.

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David K. Campbell

Science Board

Professor, Boston University, Physics and Computer and Elec. Engineering

Professor David K. Campbell received his bachelor's degree in physics and chemistry from Harvard College in 1966, Part III Mathematics Tripos, with distinction, from Cambridge University in 1967, and his Ph.D. in theoretical physics and applied mathematics from Cambridge in 1970. He has pioneered the systematic study of inherently nonlinear phenomena throughout physics. The central theme of his work is the role of nonlinear excitations--solitons--in novel states of matter. His contributions span many distinct subfields of physics from high-energy field theory to condensed matter. Professor Campbell is a leader in the emerging field of nonlinear science. His influential overview articles and his direction of the flag-ship journal, Chaos, of which he was the founding editor, have established key interdisciplinary organizing principles--the paradigms of solitons, chaos, and patterns--and have played a seminal role in defining the research agenda in nonlinear science.

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Nazli Choucri


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Nina Fedoroff


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Marc Feldman


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Stephanie Forrest


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Murray Gell-Mann


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Nigel Goldenfeld

Science Board

Swanlund Endowed Chair, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Dept. of Physics; Institute for Genomic Biology

Nigel Goldenfeld holds a Swanlund Endowed Chair and is a Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also leads the Biocomplexity Group at the university's Institute for Genomic Biology. Nigel received his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge (U.K.) in 1982, and for the years 1982-1985 was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California at Santa Barbara. Nigel has been an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow, a University Scholar of the University of Illinois, a recipient of the Xerox Award for research, and a recipient of the A. Nordsieck award for excellence in graduate teaching. In 1996, Nigel co-founded NumeriX, a company that specializes in high-performance software for the derivatives marketplace.   He serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and the International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance. Nigel ...

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Deborah M. Gordon

Science Board

Professor, Stanford University, Biological Sciences

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David Gross

Science Board

Director and holder Frederick W. Gluck Chair Theoretical Physics, KITP, University of California-Santa Barbara

Director and holder of the Frederick W. Gluck Chair in Theoretical Physics at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics
Professor of Physics, Department of Physics at University of California, Santa Barbara, U.S.A.
2004 Nobel Prize Winner in Physics
David J. Gross received his bachelor's degree from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, in 1962 and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1966. He then was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University before moving to Princeton University where, in 1973, he was promoted to Professor and later named Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics and Thomas Jones Professor of Mathematical Physics. He became the Director of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics and holder of the Frederick W. Gluck Chair in Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1997. Gross has been a central figure in the development of quantum ...

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Juris Hartmanis

Science Board

Professor Emeritus, Cornell University

The strategic goal of my research is to contribute to the development of a comprehensive theory of computational complexity. Computational complexity, the study of the quantitative laws that govern computation, is an essential part of the science base needed to guide, harness, and exploit the explosively growing computer technology. My current research interests are focused on two related areas: understanding the computational complexity of chaotic systems and the study of the computational complexity of scientific theories.

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John H. Holland

Trustee, Science Board, External Professor

Professor, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Computer Science/Engineering/Psychology

John H. Holland is professor of computer science and engineering and professor of psychology at the University of Michigan; he is also external professor and member of the executive committee of the board of trustees at the Santa Fe Institute.

Professor Holland was made a MacArthur fellow in 1992 and is a fellow of the World Economic Forum. He serves on the Advisory Board on Complexity at the McDonnell Foundation.

Professor Holland has been interested for more than 40 years in what are now called complex adaptive systems (CAS). He formulated genetic algorithms, classifier systems, and the Echo models as tools for studying the dynamics of such systems. His books Hidden Order (1995) and Emergence (1998) summarize many of his thoughts about complex adaptive systems.

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Arthur M. Jaffe

Science Board

Landon T. Clay Professor of Mathematics and Theoretical Science, Harvard University

Arthur studied at Princeton and Cambridge Universities, starting in experimental chemistry, transitioning through mathematics, and ending in theoretial physics. He established the compatibility of special relativity with quantum theory, by demonstrating the existence of non-linear quantum field theories in space-times of dimension two and three. (This problem in dimension four is still unresolved.) He has been on the faculty of Harvard University since 1967, and served as President of the International Association of Mathematical Physics, President of the American Mathematical Society, Chair of the Council of Scientific Socity Presidents, and in other positions. He was a founding member, director, and first president of the Clay Mathematics Institute, popularly known for offering a seven million dollar prize for the solution of seven mathematical questions.

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Erica Jen

Science Board, External Professor

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Mimi Koehl

Science Board

Professor, University of California-Berkeley, Dept. of Integrative Biology

I study the physics of how organisms interact with their environments. My goal is to elucidate basic physical rules that can be applied to different kinds of organisms about how body structure affects mechanical function in nature. I combine techniques from fluid and solid mechanics with those from biology to do experiments in the field as well as in the laboratory. Using both organisms and physical models, I have studied a variety of problems: the fluid dynamics of how molecules are captured by olfactory antennae and how food particles are filtered from the water by aquatic animals, the mechanisms by which bottom-dwelling marine organisms withstand waves and currents, the evolution of aerodynamic performance in insects and gliding vertebrates, the dispersal of chemical cues and of larvae in turbulent aquatic habitats, and the mechanics of how shape changes are produced in soft-bodied animals and developing embryos. I investigate structure and function ...

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Tim Kohler

Science Board, External Professor

Regents Professor, Washington State University, Anthropology

Tim received his A.B. from New College of Sarasota, Florida in 1972 and his Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Florida in 1978. Except for brief interludes in Avignon, France, as a Northwestern Interinstitutional Council for Study Abroad professor in 1983, and in Calgary, Alberta, as a Fulbright-University of Calgary Distinguished Chair in North American Studies in 1999, his academic career to date has been at Washington State University (WSU), Pullman. He currently directs the "Village Ecodynamics" NSF Biocomplexity project and a joint WSU/University of Washington IGERT called IPEM (IGERT Program in Evolutionary Modeling). He uses agent-based and systems-level models as aids in calibrating interpretations of what happened in prehistory, with emphasis on the US Southwest, where he is a Research Associate at Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, Cortez, Colorado.

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Arthur Lander


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Richard Lenski

Science Board

Hannah Distinguished Professor and Director, Ecol, Evol Bio & Behavior, Michigan State University, Ecology Evolutionary Biology & Behavior

The main focus of my lab is on experimental evolution. Evolution is usually investigated using the comparative method or by studying fossils. Our approach is to watch evolution as it happens, in the context of experiments that are replicated and performed under controlled conditions. The idea of watching evolution in action is not new. In fact, Charles Darwin, in the first edition of On the Origin of Species (1859, p. 187), said "In looking for the gradations by which an organ in any species has been perfected, we ought to look exclusively to its lineal ancestors ; but this is scarcely ever possible, and we are forced in each case to look to species of the same group, that is to the collateral descendants from the same original parent-form."

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Simon A. Levin

Science Board

Moffett Professor of Biology, Princeton University, Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Simon A. Levin received his B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and his Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Maryland. At Cornell University 1965-1992 , he was Chair of the Section of Ecology and Systematics, and then Director of the Ecosystems Research Center, the Center for Environmental Research and the Program on Theoretical and Computational Biology, as well as Charles A. Alexander Professor of Biological Sciences (1985-1992). Since 1992, he has been at Princeton University, where he is currently George M. Moffett Professor of Biology and Director of the Center for BioComplexity. He retains an Adjunct Professorship at Cornell. His research interests are in understanding how macroscopic patterns and processes are maintained at the level of ecosystems and the biosphere, in terms of ecological and evolutionary mechanisms that operate primarily at the level of organisms; in infectious diseases; and in the interface between basic and applied ecology. Levin is ...

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Richard Lewontin

Science Board

Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology, Harvard University, Museum of Comp Zoology Emeritus

Richard Lewontin is Alexander Agassiz Research Professor at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University. His many books include Biology and Ideology, Not in Our Genes, and Human Diversity.

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Peter Littlewood

Science Board

Associate Laboratory Director, Argonne National Laboratory, Physical Sciences and Engineering

Peter B. Littlewood is Associate Laboratory Director for Physical Sciences and Engineering at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne national Laboratory.

A physicist by training, Littlewood is responsible for Argonne's fundamental science capabilities in materials science, nanoscience, chemical sciences and engineering, physics and high energy physics. He works with Argonne senior leadership to manage and integrate the laboratory's strategies, with a particular focus on materials for energy. He also holds an appointment as Professor of Physics in the James Franck Institute at the University of Chicago.

He came to Argonne from Cambridge University, United Kingdom, where he was Head of the Cavendish Laboratory and the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge. He previously headed the Theory of Condensed Matter group at the Cavendish Laboratory. During a 2003-2004 sabbatical leave, he was Matthias Scholar at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Prior to joining Cambridge, he worked ...

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Seth Lloyd

Science Board, External Professor

Professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

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L. Mahadevan


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Eric Maskin


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Baron May of Oxford

Science Board

Professor, Oxford University, Zoology

Robert McCredie, Baron May of Oxford, OM AC Kt, is President of the Royal Society (2000-2005), and holds a Professorship jointly in the Department of Zoology, Oxford University, and at Imperial College, London, and is a Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. For the five-year period ending September 2000, he was Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, and Head of its Office of Science and Technology. Initially enrolled in Chemical Engineering, May ended up with a BSc and a PhD in Theoretical Physics from Sydney University. He then spent two years as Gordon MacKay Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at Harvard University, returning to Sydney University as Senior Lecturer (later Reader and, at age 33, the holder of Sydney University's first Personal Chair) in Theoretical Physics. In the early 1970's he became interested in the dynamics of animal populations (particularly the "chaotic" dynamical behaviour that can arise) and in ...

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Lauren Meyers


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Melanie Mitchell

Science Board, External Professor

Professor, Portland State University, Computer Science

Melanie Mitchell is Professor of Computer Science at Portland State University, and External Professor and Member of the Science Board at the Santa Fe Institute. She attended Brown University, where she majored in mathematics and did research in astronomy, and the University of Michigan, where she received a Ph.D. in computer science, Her dissertation, in collaboration with her advisor Douglas Hofstadter, was the development of Copycat, a computer program that makes analogies. She has held faculty or professional positions at the University of Michigan, the Santa Fe Institute, Los Alamos National Laboratory, the OGI School of Science and Engineering, and Portland State University. She is the author or editor of five books and over 70 scholarly papers in in the fields of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, and complex systems. Her most recent book, Complexity: A Guided Tour, published in 2009 by Oxford University Press, is the winner of the ...

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Harold Morowitz

Science Board Chair, Emeritus, Santa Fe Institute

Clarence J. Robinson Professor of Biology and Natural Philosophy, George Mason University, Krasnow Institute

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Mark Newman

Science Board, External Professor

Paul Dirac Collegiate Professor of Physics, University of Michigan, Physics and Complex Systems

Our research is on the structure and function of networks, particularly social and information networks, which we study using a combination of empirical methods, analysis, and computer simulation. Among other things, we have investigated scientific coauthorship networks, citation networks, email networks, friendship networks, epidemiological contact networks, and animal social networks; we have studied fundamental network properties such as degree distributions, centrality measures, assortative mixing, vertex similarity, and community structure; and we have made analytic or computer models of disease propagation, friendship formation, the spread of computer viruses, the Internet, and network navigation algorithms.

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George Oster

Science Board

Professor, University of California-Berkeley, Cell and Developmental Biology

My research involves construction and testing of theoretical models of molecular, cellular and developmental processes. Current Projects include investigations into the basic physics and chemistry of protein motors, eukaryotic and prokaryotic cell motility, spatial pattern formation in eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells, and membrane geometry and protein organization.

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Alan Perelson

Science Board, External Professor

Senior Fellow, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mathematical and Theoretical Biology

Dr. Perelson received his B.S. degrees in Life Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT in 1967, and a Ph.D. in Biophysics, under the supervision of Aharon Katchalsky-Katzir, from UC Berkeley in 1972. He was Acting Assistant Professor, Division of Medical Physics, Berkeley, in 1973 and a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Minnesota, in 1974. He was a staff member in the Theoretical Biology and Biophysics Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1974 - 1991, a Laboratory Fellow from 1991 - 2002, head of the Theoretical Biology and Biophysics Group between 1995 - 2001, and is currently a Los Alamos National Laboratory Senior Fellow. He spent the 1978 and 1979 academic years at Brown University as an Assistant Professor of Medical Sciences in the Division of Biology and Medicine and the Lefschetz Center for Dynamical Systems, was a visiting scientist at the Mathematical Institute, Oxford University ...

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David Pines


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Lord Martin Rees

Science Board

Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, Master of Trinity College, University of Cambridge

Martin John Rees, Baron Rees of Ludlow, is Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics and Master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge. He holds the honorary title of Astronomer Royal and also Visiting Professor at Imperial College London and at Leicester University. After studying at the University of Cambridge, he held post-doctoral positions in the UK and the USA, before becoming a professor at Sussex University. In 1973, he became a fellow of King's College and Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge (continuing in the latter post until 1991) and served for ten years as director of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy. From 1992 to 2003 he was a Royal Society Research Professor. He is a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is an honorary member of the Russian Academy ...

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Thomas Rosenbaum

Science Board

Provost, University of Chicago, Office of the Provost

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Thomas F. Rosenbaum, John T. Wilson Distinguished Service Professor in Physics, the James Franck Institute and the College, presently serves as the Provost of The University of Chicago. In addition to his responsibilities for academic and research programs across the University, Rosenbaum serves on the Board of Governors for Argonne National Laboratory.

Rosenbaum is an expert on the quantum mechanical nature of materials - the physics of electronic, magnetic and optical materials at the atomic level - that are best observed at temperatures near absolute zero (minus 459 degrees Fahrenheit). He conducted research at Bell Laboratories and at IBM Watson Research Center before he joined the Chicago faculty in 1983.

He directed the University's Materials Research Laboratory from 1991 to 1994, the University's James Franck Institute ...

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Donald Saari

Science Board

Distinguished Professor; Director, Institute for Mathematical Behavioral Science, University of California-Irvine, Mathematics and Economics

I grew up in the beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michagan. To see where, find the part of Michigan that is above Wisconsin; my hometown is on the thumb sticking into the frigid waters of Lake Superior. By its location, you can appreciate why in the midst of winter, where we could have 400 inches of snowfall, people would bundle up and drive south to warm up in, say, Green Bay or Minneapolis. Reflecting the advantages of the region, much of my youth was spent skiing, camping, scouting, sailing, acting in class plays, involved in athletics, exploring abandoned mines, etc.; i.e., a great time! As an undergraduate at Michigan Technological University I had a triple major —social life, campus politics, and athletics, but with a strong minor in mathematics. While I always had high grades, it took graduate school (Purdue) to totally turn me on to academics—so much so ...

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Jeremy (Jerry) A. Sabloff


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Montgomery Slatkin

Science Board

Professor, University of California-Berkeley, Dept. of Integrative Biology

My research is currently directed to analyzing genetic data within and between species in the context of population genetic models. The overall goal is to show how variation among individuals in DNA sequence can be used to understand population genetic processes including recombination, selection, migration, and past population growth. At present my research is focused on (1) linkage disequilibrium and the generation of haplotype blocks, (2) the spectrum of frequencies of alleles associated with genetic diseases in humans, (3) the inference of allele age and (4) selection on alleles associated with disease resistance in human populations. I retain an interest in quantitative genetics, epistasis, and population structure.

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Derek Smith

Science Board

Professor of Infectious Disease Informatics, University of Cambridge, Department of Zoology

Research area - Population and Community Ecology (Pathogen Evolution)

We use antigenic cartography, along with genetic and population biology techniques, to study basic questions in pathogen evolution, and coevolution with the acquired immunity in host populations.

Antigenic cartography is a new mathematical and computational method which for the first time allows one to quantify and visualize fine-grain phenotypic differences among strains of viruses or bacteria (Smith et al., Science 305, 371-376, 2004).

Antigenic cartography has been developed using data on human influenza virus subtype A(H3N2), and is routinely used to analyze the global data from the World Health Organization influenza surveillance network as part of the influenza vaccine strain selection process.

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Dawn Song

Science Board

Associate Professor, University of California-Berkeley, Computer Science Division

Dawn Song is Associate Professor of Computer Science at UC Berkeley. Prior to joining UC Berkeley, she was an Assistant Professor at Carnegie Mellon University from 2002 to 2007. Her research interest lies in security and privacy issues in computer systems and networks, including areas ranging from software security, networking security, database security, distributed systems security, to applied cryptography. She is the recipient of various awards including the MacArthur Fellowship, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the NSF CAREER Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, the MIT Technology Review TR-35 Award, the IBM Faculty Award, the George Tallman Ladd Research Award, the Okawa Foundation Research Award, the Li Ka Shing Foundation Women in Science Distinguished Lecture Series Award, and Best Paper Awards from top conferences.

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Daniel L. Stein

Science Board

Dean of Science and Professor of Physics and Mathematics, New York University, Physics and Mathematics

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Charles Stevens

Science Board, External Professor

Professor and Vincent J. Coates Chair in Molecular Neurobiology, The Salk Institute, Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory

I received my BA in Psychology from Harvard, my MD from Yale, and my PhD in Biophysics from Rockefeller University where I studied mathematics and physics and did experimental research in vision. My long-term goal is to understand the mathematical operations carried out by neural circuits, and my immediate goal is to understand the design principles that underlie the scalable architecture of neural circuits. The immediate goal relates to the long-term goal through the fact that circuit scalability together with the properties of neurons places constraints on the types of operations that the circuit can carry out. The current research program uses quantitative neuroanatomical and physiological data from brain regions in fish to study scalability. Fish are used because they continue to grow throughout their live, to add new neurons to their brain and retina, and to increase the size and capability of their neural circuits. Design principles identified in ...

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Geoffrey West

Science Board, Science Steering Committee

Distinguished Professor and Past President, Santa Fe Institute

Geoffrey West is a theoretical physicist whose primary interests have been in fundamental questions in physics, especially those concerning the elementary particles, their interactions and cosmological implications. West served as SFI President from July 2005 through July 2009. Prior to joining the Santa Fe Institute as a Distinguished Professor in 2003, he was the leader, and founder, of the high energy physics group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he is one of only approximately ten Senior Fellows.

His long-term fascination in general scaling phenomena evolved into a highly productive collaboration on the origin of universal scaling laws that pervade biology from the molecular genomic scale up through mitochondria and cells to whole organisms and ecosystems. This led to the development of realistic quantitative models for the structural and functional design of organisms based on underlying universal principles. This work, begun at the Institute, has received much attention in both ...

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Peter G. Wolynes


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Chris Wood

Vice President, Administration and Director, Business Network

Chris received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1973. Following a postdoctoral appointment at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington DC, he returned to Yale as a faculty member with joint appointments in the Departments of Psychology, Neurology, and Neurosurgery. Chris left Yale in 1989 to lead the Biophysics Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, a position he held until becoming the Santa Fe Institute's Vice President in 2005. At Los Alamos, Chris' group was responsible for a wide range of biophysical and physical research, including protein crystallography, quantum information, and human brain imaging. During 2000-2001, Chris served as interim director of the National Foundation for Functional Brain Imaging, a collaboration involving Harvard / Massachusetts General Hospital, University of Minnesota, and a number of academic and research institutions in New Mexico devoted to the development and application of advanced functional imaging techniques to mental disorders. Chris' research ...

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Henry T. Wright

Science Board, External Professor

Professor of Anthropology and Curator of Near Eastern Archaeology, University of Michigan, Department of Anthropology and Museum of Anthropology

My earliest archaeological research was on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay and in the Potomac River valley, recording the remains of prehistoric camp and village sites, as well colonial farms and town sites, and learning to view the past in regional and ecological perspectives. In 1960 I went to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor as an undergraduate, and was introduced to the anthropological perspectives on the total human achievement. I became fascinated with competing explanations of the evolution of the complex social formations that dominate our planet today. At the University of Chicago, I became interested in the ancient Near East, the planet's earliest civilization, centered in southwest Asia. I did dissertation research in southern Iraq on urban societies of ca. 3000 B.C., completing a doctorate in Anthropology in 1967. I returned to Ann Arbor to join the staff at the Museum of Anthropology as ...

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