Mission Statement
We seek to understand how interaction-driven evolutionary, ecological and informational processes generate complexity across scales, using theoretical insight to reveal general principles and responsibly inform real-world challenges.
Five Commitments
More expansively, the group's mission rests on five intertwined commitments.
Process over system
Our unifying object of study is not a particular organism or ecosystem, but interaction-driven dynamics. Whether the context is microbial communities, plant pathogens, gene drives, animal behaviour, or collective human narratives, the central question remains: What rules of interaction give rise to structure, cooperation, conflict, resilience, or collapse?
Eco-evolutionary-learning dynamics
We consistently reject the separation of ecology, evolution and learning. Instead, we treat them as coupled feedback systems unfolding on overlapping timescales. Our aim is to understand these feedback loops mechanistically and mathematically — especially where they generate non-intuitive or emergent outcomes.
Theory as a generative engine
Our ethos "insight preceding application" is not rhetorical — it reflects a methodological stance. We view theoretical biology not merely as a descriptive tool but as a generative framework capable of revealing new phenomena, predicting counterintuitive dynamics, and reframing applied problems before intervention. Application is important, but it is downstream of conceptual clarity.
Cross-scale curiosity
A persistent theme in our work is movement across levels of organisation — genes, cells, individuals, populations, communities, and even societies. We embrace the idea that similar dynamical principles may operate across scales, driven by a deep curiosity about emergence: how higher-order structure arises from lower-level interactions.
Responsible translation
Although curiosity-driven at its core, our research does not remain abstract. We deliberately connect to antimicrobial resistance, agriculture, sustainability, infectious disease control, and cultural systems. Our mission is not only to understand complexity but to inform decisions in systems where evolution cannot be ignored.
Research Evolution
Publication output per year. The group's themes have diversified significantly since 2016.
Explore Our Work
Browse our full publication archive, complete with interactive collaboration networks.
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