Over the past three years, C. Brandon Ogbunu has become a familiar face at SFI as an External Professor. In February, he joined SFI as a part-time Resident Professor.
Ogbunu’s life has defied categorization; in his work as an assistant professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Yale, he uses modeling tools from computational biology to explore the larger contexts in which biological systems exist, studying the socio-political in concert with the molecular, ecological and epidemiological. “Discoveries,” Ogbunu says, “are made when you borrow ideas from certain disciplines and carefully and responsibly combine them.”
Among many things, Ogbunu explores how biological systems, such as humans and viruses, interact in social systems, and how these interactions comprise social “stress tests” — events that reveal hidden structures in complex systems. For instance, Ogbunu’s research revealed how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated racial inequality in the U.S. prison system. Even as the pandemic gave way to the greatest decarceration event in U.S. history — people with relatively light sentences were released during the emergency — the racial disparity in American prisons became more pronounced: studies had demonstrated that people of color are often given harsher sentences for equivalent crimes and were not granted release.
These insights have implications beyond the justice system: if we want to understand human biology and evolution, we must consider the societies in which humans are embedded. By studying epidemics beyond the confines of biology, Ogbunu’s outside-the-box approach can help reveal and unravel problems, including how emergencies like pandemics can exacerbate preexisting political inequalities.
“My interest in the disregard for boxes started with my mother,” Ogbunu says. Living in New York City, she taught social studies, mathematics, and special education across many different levels, from elementary school to community college. “I had a good example at home of somebody who just refused to be put into a box. She taught me to care for others, and to be aware of how social forces like discrimination negatively influence people and societies. But at the same time, she taught me that there was nothing I couldn’t achieve — my racial identity or my social class or my geographic location — none of those things were to be considered barriers to thinking about anything and to achieving anything.”
Ogbunu’s academic career embodies that refusal to be pigeonholed. He began his studies in chemistry at Howard University. His interest in evolutionary biology arose from engaging with the writings of Charles Darwin. On a Fulbright Scholarship at the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Kenya, he studied malaria chemical ecology. After studying medicine for two years at the Yale School of Medicine, he began a Ph.D. in microbiology, shifting his focus to evolution, epidemiology, and disease modeling; worked with UNICEF to develop data-driven policy for early childhood development in Laos and Angola; and held postdoctoral fellowships and professorships at The Broad Institute, MIT, Harvard, the University of Vermont, Brown, and Yale, where he recently received tenure.
A prolific writer with broad interests, Ogbunu authors the column, “Selective Pressure,” at Undark Magazine. His writing has appeared numerous times in Wired, The Atlantic, Quanta, and Scientific American. He has written on evolutionary biology, artificial intelligence, and the importance of humor in a public health crisis. He is a frequent collaborator with Grammy-winning musician and MIT lecturer Lupe Fiasco, generating articles for Wired on the future of hip-hop in the age of AI, and the impact of emerging technologies on how conflicts manifest between hip-hop artists.
For Ogbunu, communication is an essential part of science. “There’s been this large expanse between the technical science coming out of large universities and the lives of everyday Americans and citizens around the world.” In “Selective Pressure,” Ogbunu argued that recent attacks on science funding and a sense of anti-intellectualism in the United States are due, in part, to scientists not having a relationship with the public; his writing and lecturing demonstrate a commitment to forging that relationship. “Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was a work of observation and popular communication. Biology is here because people knew how to connect important technical ideas to everyday people. That’s a tradition I see my work in, and that’s something that SFI has been especially supportive of.”
Ogbunu will continue his exploration of life and its contingencies at SFI.
“I had a canonical SFI experience last summer while I was in Bogotá for the Complexity Global School,” Ogbunu says, recounting a conversation with SFI Complexity Postdoctoral Fellow Andrew Stier. “We talked for twenty minutes, maybe a half hour, and we had the skeleton of a study sketched out where we’d look at the relationship between implicit racial bias in American cities and their voting patterns in U.S. elections.”
At SFI, Ogbunu plans to continue collaborations on this topic, explorations into cellular physiology with SFI Professor Chris Kempes, and mentoring emerging researchers, such as Emma Zajdela, a Siegel Research Fellow, on topics related to metascience and the global south.
"Disregard for disciplinary boundaries is essential for discovery" Ogbunu says. "The Santa Fe Institute is so special and important because they lean into that, and don’t run from it."