Chris Wood

Chris Wood received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1973. Following a postdoctoral appointment at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, he returned to Yale as faculty with joint appointments in the Departments of Psychology, Neurology, and Neurosurgery.  Chris left Yale in 1989 to lead the Biophysics Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, a position he held until 2005. At Los Alamos, Chris' group was responsible for a wide range of biophysical and physical research, including protein crystallography, quantum information, and human brain imaging. During 2000-2001, Chris served as interim director of the National Foundation for Functional Brain Imaging, a collaboration involving Harvard / Massachusetts General Hospital, University of Minnesota, and a number of research institutions in New Mexico devoted to the development and application of functional imaging techniques to mental disorders.  Chris joined SFI as Vice President in 2005, where he simultaneously held VP for Science and VP for Administration responsibilities until they were separated in 2009.  Chris was VP for Administration and Director of the SFI Business Network (ACtioN’s predecessor) until his resignation in early 2016 following cancer diagnosis and treatment.  Chris' research interests include brain imaging and modeling, computational neuroscience, and computation in natural and human-engineered systems.

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Primary Institution: Santa Fe Institute

Role/Title: External Faculty Emeritus

Topics of Interest: Behavior - Intelligence - Mathematics/Computer Science - Neuroscience - Cognitive Science - Philosophy

How SFI changes your mind: Very unpredictably!

When and how you first got involved with SFI: I first learned about SFI from Doyne Farmer when we were both at Los Alamos in the late 1980s.

Favorite Book: Don Quixote

Favorite Film: Wings of Desire