Senior Research Associate
Computational Biology Service Unit /
Cornell Life Sciences Core Laboratories Center and Cornell Center for Advanced Computing /
Cornell University
crm17 [at] cornell [dot] edu / 607.255.5894 (phone) / 607.254.8888 (fax)
636 Rhodes Hall / Cornell University / Ithaca, NY 14853
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My research interests percolate on the landscape where complex systems meet computation, touching on problems from statistical physics, molecular and cell biology, dynamical systems, and computer science. In the past, I've worked on problems such as critical phenomena and pattern formation in disordered systems, slip complexity on earthquake faults, defect dynamics and multiscale modeling in materials, and the design and development of software systems for scientific computing. In the past few years, I've shifted my focus toward problems in molecular and cell biology (specifically, the functioning of regulatory and signaling networks in cells) and to related questions concerning the organization and evolution of complex, adaptive, information processing systems.
Some important questions in the field of systems biology seek to address how cells process information from their environment through gene regulation and signal transduction networks, and how those networks remain robust and evolvable in the face of both external environmental changes and internal genomic modifications. Living cells are functionally polymorphic, with modules being mixed and matched in different contexts, and functional compensation exposing itself in unexpected ways when a component or subsystem is unable to function properly. I am working to understand the organization and function of cellular information processing networks, and how they are implemented in the molecular hardware. My longstanding interest in the design of software systems suggests analogies between engineered and evolved information processing networks, centered around how complex functionality can be assembled through the dynamic composition of modular, evolvable components.