Santa Fe Institute

Bio

In 2006 I joined the University of Calgary to start the Complexity Science Group, which now includes two faculty and one visiting (i-CORE) Professor in Biophysical Complexity. My research has four interdisciplinary target areas and emphasizes the study of high resolution data to develop both conceptual and quantitative models. These target areas are crucial to advancing scientific understanding of our world, and founded on strengths in the group and its network of collaborations to link theory to leading edge experimental data and advances in technology. These target areas are: (1) Distributed Information Networks. Applications include improving protocols and design for peer-to-peer networks, e-Science or global computing, understanding biological signalling and regulation, as well as modelling of human social/economic behavior in electronic worlds. (2) Structure of Complex Networks. Our aim is to find meaningful structures in biological networks such as regulatory or protein interaction networks, detect systematic biases and errors in the measurement of these biological networks, as well as understand social networks and how ideas spread and persist in them. (3) Complex Dynamical Systems. We develop new methods to analyze high resolution spatiotemporal data and at the same time develop theoretical models (that can be analyzed in the same way) of far from equilibrium phenomena such as turbulent dynamics or self-organized criticality - in biology, econophysics, geophysics and astrophysics. (4) Quantitative models of social and economic phenomena. We work with social scientists and others to develop falsifiable statistical models of human collective behavior. Complexity Science offers exciting opportunities for students and postdoctorial fellows to gain not only experience in particular problems, but to consider how their understanding plays out in various contexts. Individuals or teams work with experts in different fields to tackle problems of interest. One strategy my group uses to address the challenges of interdisciplinary work is frequent informal group meetings devoted to discussing topics across a wide scope (biology, communication and signaling, archeology, the internet, p2p networks, gene networks, tokomak plasmas, terrorism, markets, world of warcraft ...). These discussions are either led by one of the students, postdocs, or by experts that we invite from other disciplines at the University of Calgary and around the world. In this way and others, younger physicists learn to discuss scientific problems with scientists (and even nonscientists) who have different training, and to quantify the knowledge gained in that process using mathematical methods and computer simulations. These models can then be tested directly against quantitative and reproducible empirical data -- leading to the possibility to falsify models and thereby develop an improved understanding of those complex and often complicated systems. It is the universality of certain principles in theoretical physics that lead to nontrivial predictions which we exploit to tackle all these different problems.