Publications

Standard evolutionary theories of aging and mortality, implicitly based on mean-field assumptions, hold that programed mortality is untenable, as it opposes direct individual benefit. We show that in spatial models with local reproduction, programed...

Dynamic DNA nanotechnology provides a promising avenue for implementing sophisticated assembly processes, mechanical behaviours, sensing and computation at the nanoscale. However, design of these systems is complex and error-prone, because the need to...

Complex systems are characterized by many independent components whose low-level actions produce collective high-level results. Predicting high-level results given low-level rules is a key open challenge; the inverse problem, finding low-level rules that...

Robots have an untapped potential to contribute to education by acting as subordinate learners for students to teach. The benefits that the act of teaching provides for one’s own learning have long been recognized; tutoring-associated improvements in...

We consider the conditions of peace and violence among ethnic groups, testing a theory designed to predict the locations of violence and interventions that can promote peace. Characterizing the model's success in predicting peace requires examples where...