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Home / People

James Crutchfield

James Crutchfield

External Professor




Jim Crutchfield teaches nonlinear physics at the University of California, Davis, directs its Complexity Sciences Center, and promotes science interventions in nonscientific settings. He’s mostly concerned with what patterns are, how they are created, and how intelligent agents discover them; see http://csc.ucdavis.edu/∼chaos/.

Prof. Crutchfield has worked in the areas of nonlinear dynamics, solid-state physics, astrophysics, fluid mechanics, critical phenomena and phase transitions, chaos, and pattern formation. His current research interests center on the physics of information and computation, statistical inference for nonlinear processes, immersive visualization, evolutionary theory, machine learning, quantum dynamics, and whale communication. Crutchfield has an h-index of 75 and over 30,000 citations from publishing over 250 peer-reviewed articles in these areas


Topics of Interest: Agent-based Modeling - AI/Machine Learning - Arts - Behavior - Biology - Economics - Engineering - Evolution - Intelligence - Linguistics - Mathematics/Computer Science - Network Theory - Neuroscience - Physics - Scaling - Technology/Innovation - Time - Intrinsic Computation - Physics of Adaptation

Other Affiliations and Institutions: Telluride Science Research Center, General Member and Board Member; Art & Science Laboratory, President and Scientific Director; Redwood Center for Theoretical Neuroscience, Visiting Scholar; Institute of Unknown Purpose, Co-Founder

When and how you first got involved with SFI: 1989



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  • Home Institution
  • University of California, Davis
  • Director, Complexity Sciences Center
  • Distinguished Professor of Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science


Research Projects

Information, thermodynamics, and the evolution of complexity in biological systems