JESSICA FLACK is a professor at the Santa Fe Institute and the director of SFI's Collective Computation Group (C4). Flack’s research focuses on the roles of information processing, coarse-graining, and collective computation in the emergence of robust structure and function in nature and society. A central philosophical issue behind this work is how nature overcomes subjectivity inherent in information processing systems to produce collective, ordered states. C4 research projects sit at the intersection of evolutionary theory, cognitive science and collective behavior, statistical mechanics, information theory, and theoretical computer science.
Flack was previously founding director of University of Wisconsin, Madison's Center for Complexity and Collective Computation in the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery. Flack's work has been covered by scientists and science journalists in many publications and media outlets, including the BBC, NPR, Nature, Science, The Economist, New Scientist, and Current Biology.