Electronics and Computer Science (ECS), University of Southampton

After gaining a BA in cognitive science and a DPhil (PhD) in evolutionary simulation modelling from the School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences at Sussex University (supervised by Dave Cliff and Phil Husbands), I spent two years in Berlin at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development working with Peter Todd on simulating the evolution of adaptive decision-making behaviour in people and other animals. In 1999 I took up a five-year University Research Fellowship at the University of Leeds and became a Lecturer there in 2004. In October 2005 I joined the University of Southampton as Senior Lecturer, and helped to found the Science and Engineering of Natural Systems (SENSe) research group.  In 2009 I became head of the SENSe group, and also became Director of Southampton's new Institute for Complex Systems Simulation (ICSS). In 2010 I became co-director of the University Strategic Research Group in Complexity in Real World Contexts (USRG Complexity), for which I run a Complex Systems Simulation Seminar Series (CS^4). In 2011 I was promoted to Professor of Computer Science and helped found the Agents, Interaction and Complexity (AIC) research group.

Fully-Funded PhD Positions in Complex Systems Simulation

If you are interested in a fully-funded PhD position, modelling complex systems in areas such as climate change, drug design, evolutionary and ecological biology, transport, markets, amorphous and pervasive computing, tissues and biomedical systems, massive multi-agent systems, quantum systems, turbulence, nanodevices, molecular biology, industrial design, etc., please click here.

Research Interests

My principal research interest is evolutionary simulation modelling: the application of evolutionary modelling techniques developed within artificial intelligence (e.g., genetic algorithms) to problems within evolutionary biology (e.g., the evolution of communication).  I am also interested in self-organisation and adaptation in engineered systems, such as computational ecosystems, infrastructure systems, etc., and the potential for the modelling techniques that I use to be applied to problems from many other disciplines, e.g., linguistics, economics, psychology, geography, anthropology, etc.

Some of my additional research interests include:

• modelling tools related to the evolutionary simulation modelling approach such as evolutionary computation, evolutionary and economic game theory, artificial neural networks, and evolutionary theory

• philosophical and methodological issues raised by evolutionary simulation modelling - philosophy of science and philosophy of biology

• engineering applications of evolutionary computation such as evolutionary and coevolutionary design paradigms

• areas of evolutionary biology, such as the handicap principle and signalling, sexual selection, and coevolution

• psychological topics, such as the evolution of cognition and decision-making, rationality, and experimental economics

• research areas sometimes termed: the simulation of adaptive behaviour, evolutionary robotics, complex systems theory, individual-based models, synthetic psychology, biology and behavioural ecology

Location

• Highfield Campus, Building 16, Room 1045

I am a director of the new University Strategic Research Group (USRG) on Complexity Science in Real World Contexts.

DPhil "Evolutionary Simulation Models" (Sussex University, 1997)
BA (Hons) "Psychology and Computer Models" (Sussex University, 1993)

• I am a member of the EPSRC College.

• I serve on the board of directors of the International Society for Artificial Life

• I am associate editor of Adaptive Behavior.

• I was Conference Chair for the Eleventh International Conference on Artificial Life, hosted in Winchester, August 2008.

• I am co-editor of a special issue of Artificial Life on the theme of Visualization for Complex Adaptive Systems.

• I am co-editor of a special issue of Complexity on the theme of Spatial Organisation.

• I have carried out consultancy for UK Government's Department of Trade and Industry and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

• I have served as external examiner for the award of PhD, and am external examiner for the MSc Evolutionary and Adaptive Systems at the University of Sussex.

I am a regular member of the programme committees for the European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL), the International Conference on Artificial Life (ALIFE), and the International Conference on the Simulation of Adaptive Behavior (SAB), and also attend biology conferences such as those organised by the International Society for Behavioral Ecology (ISBE) and British Ecological Society (BES).