User:Jreyes
From Santa Fe Institute Events Wiki
Contact Information
| E-mail: | jreyes@removeme.cs.umb.edu |
About Me: Professional
Currently, I'm a masters student in computer science at the University of Massachusetts Boston. I'm interested in evolutionary dynamics, especially modeling group behavior. Before that I was in an education program; before that, I was a mathematics undergraduate.
I have a website!
About Me: Personal
I'm from Boston, though I spent some time in Texas and Canada during elementary school. I like swimming and would like to learn to play water polo. I appreciate good beer. My favorite color is orange. Publicly, my favorite number is zero, or possibly one; secretly it's eleven. I never wanted to be an astronaut when I was little. I did, however, want to work in ground control.
Those Questions
- What are your main interests?
My interests have wandered about in the last few years. Currently I'm really interested in evolutionary game theory, specifically in origins and sustainability of cooperation between individuals and groups. Within that, specialization and branching phenomena pique my interests. It seems like the models I look at have some information in them (in the information theoretic sense), and eventually I'd like to how the amount of information in the system changes over time.
For a while I thought I might be a geometer, and for a while I was interested in general relativity—but only enough to have learned things that are so vague that they'd be appropriate at a gathering no more rigorous than a cocktail party. A cocktail party without scientists present.
- What sorts of expertise can you bring to the group?
I know the basics of evolutionary game theory and can program in Java well enough. I can feel my way around in a few other languages, too, like Python, C, and Matlab, but not enough to mention here. Right now I'm starting to learn how to implement parallel algorithms (i.e., evolutionary things) using MPI. I'm also expertly curious, and oftentimes, expertly confused.
- What do you hope to get out of the CSSS?
I'd like to bring home a solid collection of modeling tools and tricks. As I'm new to the game, it'd be great for me to see how others approach model building. As far as I can tell, it's a dark art, and I want in. It'd be nice to meet other people who are tackling (approximately) the sort of questions I'm wondering about—remember I'm all about cooperation. And it'd be fantastic to brush up on and extend my foundational knowledge in, say, dynamical systems.
- Do you have any possible projects in mind for the CSSS?
Not really, but if my project had a strong connection to evolutionary game theory, information theory, or both, I'd be very happy.