CURRICULUM VITAE

Institution

Reed College
Research Area

Artificial life, synthetic biology, philosophy of biology, philosophy of science, ethics of science and technology
Focus Area

Measuring and visualizing evolutionary dynamics, Evolutionary design of complex biochemical systems, Dynamical emergent processes, The creativity of evolution, Cultural evolution and the evolution of technology, The nature of life, The science of creating life from scratch, The social and ethical implications of creating life in the laboratory
Short Bio

Prof. Mark A. Bedau (Ph.D. Philosophy, UC Berkeley, 1985) is an internationally recognized leader in the interdisciplinary study of complex adaptive systems. He has published and lectured around the world extensively on philosophical and scientific issues concerning emergence, evolution, life, mind, and the social and ethical implications of creating life from scratch. He pioneered the field of quantifying and comparing the evolutionary activity in artificial and natural systems, and is an international leader in the evolutionary design of complex biochemical systems using statistical models and prediction algorithms. Because he combines training in analytical philosophy with over a decade of experience in artificial life, he is internationally recognized as a uniquely qualified expert in the philosophical foundations of complex adaptive systems, and has published over 100 research papers and produced 7 books, including Emergence: Contemporary Readings in Philosophy and Science (MIT Press, 2008), Protocells: Bridging Nonliving and Living Matter (MIT Press, 2008), The Ethics of Protocells: Social and Ethical Implications of Creating Life from Scratch (MIT Press, 2009), and The Nature of Life: Classical and Contemporary Perspectives from Philosophy and Science (Cambridge University Press, 2009). He has given over 200 lectures in more than 20 countries to audiences in artificial life, computer science, biology, philosophy, cognitive science, psychology, economics, physics, and mathematics, on a variety of philosophical and scientific topics including emergence, evolution, life, mind, and the social and ethical implications of creating life from scratch. He is Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Artificial Life (published by MIT Press), he co-organized the last five international conference on artificial life, he co-founded a start-up company, ProtoLife SRL, and he co-founded the European Center for Living Technology, a research institute in Venice, Italy, that investigates theoretical and practical issues associated with living systems.