Thom Scott-Phillips
From Santa Fe Institute Events Wiki
(Very) short bio:
1994-1998, undergrad degree in Maths at the University of Sussex
1998-2004, split between teaching English as a Foreign Language (in Bolivia, Italy and the UK) and a short career in e-learning, designing and writing online business training courses
2004-2005, MSc. Evolution of Language and Cognition, University of Edinburgh
2005-present, PhD. in the Language Evolution and Computation Research Unit, University of Edinburgh; thesis title something like "The role of adaptation in language evolution"