Jessica Flack

SFI Professor and C4 Director


Jessica is a professor at SFI where she also runs the Collective Computation Group with David Krakauer. They work on fundamental problems in evolutionary theory concerning collective behavior, collective computation, and collective intelligence—at all levels of biological organization—from societies of cells to societies of individuals to machine-human hybrid societies. They use insights and tools from biology, evolutionary theory, evo-devo, statistical physics, cognitive science and neuroscience, complexity science, animal behavior, information theory, theoretical computer science, and dynamical systems.

Her particular interests are in the role of collective computation/intelligence in the origin of space and time scales and in the emergence of robust structure and function in nature and society, and she is fascinated with the idea that components in adaptive systems construct their macroscopic worlds through collective coarse-graining in evolutionary and/or learning time.