<b>Complex Systems Seminar</b><br>Evolution in Action: Exploring Evolutionary Dynamics in Both Biological and Computational Domains<br><b>Speaker: Erik Goodman (MSU Electrical and Computer Engineering)</b>

Speaker: Erik Goodman (Michigan State University Electrical and Computer Engineering)

Erik Goodman, Director, BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action (An NSF Science and Technology Center) Professor, ECE, ME, CSE at Michigan State University

Nearly 400 faculty, staff and students are now members of the recently founded BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, headquartered at MSU. They are joined by a strong commitment to multidisciplinary research, often coupling study of evolution going on in a natural system with evolution of self-replicating digital organisms. Students are cross-trained: biologists take a course on computational methods, programming, and digital models of evolution, while computer scientists take a course on evolutionary biology; a subsequent course joins them in teams to initiate research projects. Goodman will describe the kinds of multidisciplinary and multi-institutional collaborations that are occurring, working with evolving bacteria, phages, yeast, and higher organisms, and involving Avida, MSU's platform for digital evolution.