Current Position

I am graduate student in Indiana University, where I am working towards PhDs in Cognitive Science and Informatics, with an emphasis in Complex Systems. I am also part of the NSF IGERT for the dynamics of brain-body-environment systems. My primary advister is Randy Beer.

Before coming here, I received my BS in Cognitive Science at the University of California, San Diego and my MS in Systems Science at Portland State University.

Research Interests

A very general summary: I am interested in using the framework of complex systems science to study cognition as a dynamical, embodied, and situated process that unfolds through the interactions between the brain, body, and environment. Through this dynamical unfolding of behavior, organisms are able to recognize their contexts, make predictions about future events, and choose appropriate actions that allow them to navigate to their goals. My current research studies the dynamical underpinning of how cognitive systems might accomplish these abilities. I do this by evolving dynamical systems models to accomplish such tasks by using genetic algorithms, and then I analyze the resulting systems to uncover their evolved strategies. By doing this, I hope to bring together a more comprehensive understanding of how distributed, self-organizing systems recognize their context in uncertain conditions, and then decide upon and coordinate appropriate actions.