Participants

Mariana Benítez studied Biology at Mexico's Autonomous National University (UNAM) and a MSc on Non-Linear Dynamics and Complex Systems at the Autonomous University of Mexico City (UACM). Then, she finished a PhD at the Institute for Ecology, again at UNAM, and made two postdoctoral stays, one at the Center for Complex Systems at UNAM and another one at Masaryk University, in the Czech Republic. In 2012 Mariana took a position at the Institute for Ecology (UNAM). Her research has focused on understanding how patterns and collective properties emerge and evolve at different spatial and temporal scales in diverse biological systems. Among her current research interests are: multicellular development and evolution in bacteria and plants, structure and dynamics of agroecosystems and sustainable food systems. Some of the theoretical frameworks that have guided her research are Complexity Sciences, Ecological Evolutionary Developmental Biology and Agroecology. She has adopted theoretical, simulation and empirical approaches allowing for integrative and interdisciplinary research. Her work has also been deeply challenged and enriched by transdisciplinary and political projects in which she has collaborated with diverse groups and communities beyond academia. The UNAM team working with Myxobacteria also includes: Dr. Alejandro V. Arzola (UNAM) and Dr. Natsuko Rivera-Yoshida (UNAM).

Ramray Bhat is an associate professor in the department of Molecular Reproduction, Development and Genetics and an associate faculty of the Centre for BioSystems Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India. He has an undergraduate degree in medicine from the University of Calcutta, a PhD in developmental biology from the New York Medical College, and was a Komen postdoctoral fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His interests lie at the interface of development, evolution and cancer. His research is funded by the departments of Biotechnology and Science and Technology of the Government of India and the Wellcome Trust-DBT India Alliance.

Tilmann Glimm is a professor of mathematics at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, USA. He grew up in Germany and studied mathematics and physics at the Technical University Berlin before obtaining his Ph.D. in mathematics from Emory University in 2003. His main research is in modeling pattern formation in multicellular systems and development, using partial differential equations and agent-based models.

Ray Goldstein received undergraduate degrees in physics and chemistry from MIT, and a PhD in theoretical physics from Cornell University. Following postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago and faculty positions in physics and applied mathematics at Princeton University and the University of Arizona, he moved to Cambridge University as the Schlumberger Professor of Complex Physical Systems in 2006. His research interests span from statistical physics to nonlinear dynamics and geophysics, with particular emphasis on biological physics, both theoretical and experimental. His work has been recognized by the Stephanos Pnevmatikos Award in Nonlinear Science, an Ig Nobel Prize (with Patrick Warren and Robin Ball) for explaining the shape of ponytails, the G.K. Batchelor Prize in Fluid Mechanics and the Rosalind Franklin Medal of the Institute of Physics. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, and the Royal Society.

Vijay has a PhD in physics from the Indian Institute of Science. He spent a few years as a postdoc at the Max-Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems and the Max-Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany. He has been on the faculty of the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bengaluru since 2015. Vijay's research interests are broadly in the physics of living systems. He is, in particular, fascinated by morphogenetic processes during development and has worked on understanding mechanobiological patterns in active materials. He is keen to understand the coupling between active mechanical forces, regulatory biochemistry and the geometry of shapes in cells and tissues. He is a recipient of the Ramalingaswami re-entry fellowship by the Department of Biotechnology, Govt. of India and is also the head of a Max-Planck partner group in Biological Physics at ICTS-TIFR.

Giuseppe Longo is a Research Director CNRS (Emeritus) at the Cavaillès interdisciplinary center of Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris (ENS). Former Research Director in the Dept. of Mathematics, then of Computer Science, at ENS (1990-2012), he has been Associate Professor of Mathematical Logic and, then, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Pisa (1981-1990). He spent three years in the USA (Berkeley, M.I.T., Carnegie Mellon) as researcher and visiting professor, spent several months visiting Oxford and Utrecht, and has been adjunct professor, School of Medicine, Tufts U., Boston (2013 - 2020). Founder and editor-in-chief (1990-2015) of Mathematical Structures in Computer Science, Camdridge U.P., Giuseppe is (co-)author of more than 100 papers and three books. He recently extended his research interests and works on the epistemology of mathematics and theoretical biology.

Maël Montévil is chargé de recherche in CNRS, in République des savoirs, USR 3608, École Normale Supérieure. He is a theoretical biologist working at the crossroad of experimental biology, mathematics, and philosophy. He developed the framework of constraints closure and theorized biological historicity and its implications for theory and modelization with which to study current issues such as endocrine disruptors and, more generally, anthropocene's disruptions and our response to them. Montévil is the author of more than twenty-five peer-reviewed articles and a monograph with Giuseppe Longo: Perspectives on organisms.

Lenny Moss studied biology and chemistry at San Francisco State University, doctoral studies in biophysics and biochemistry at UC Berkeley, completing his doctorate in cell biological research at the Lawrence Berkeley Labs. He the did post-doctoral research in human developmental cell biology at UC San Francisco Medical Center and a second PhD in philosophy at Northwestern University. Moss was a professor of philosophy for over 20 years at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Exeter. His interests and publications range from philosophical and theoretical biology to philosophical anthropology, social ontology, philosophy of mind and critical social theory with an overarching interest in bringing together questions of naturalism and normativity, and non-reductively bridging the chasm between “nature” and “culture”. He is the author of "What Genes Can’t Do" (MIT, 2003). A new book entitled "The Gambit of Geist – Naturalism, Normativity and the Hybrid Hominin" is presently in preparation.