David Krakauer is research professor and member of the Science Steering Committee at the Santa Fe Institute. His research lies at the interface of evolutionary biology, applied mathematics and computer science with projects that explore how information is acquired, stored, transmitted, replicated, transformed and rendered robust at distinct levels of biological functioning (genetic, epigenetic, autocatalytic or linguistic) where selection pressures are often independent or in conflict. With collaborators he is also engaged in projects applying insights from biological information processing to electronic, engineered systems.
Krakauer has written extensively on his research in nearly 100 articles for a wide variety of technical and scientific journals as well as in his co-edited books, Transitions from Non-Living to Living Matter (MIT Press) and in the forthcoming volumes Biological Computation and Evolutionary Theory and The Integration of Form and Function. In addition to his more traditional scientific interests he is also actively engaged in collaboration and discussion with historians and curators exploring the many ways in which a knowledge of science, and complexity science more specifically, might enhance the way historians go about inquiring into the past, and potentially, predicting the future.