Dr. Chris Reid

I study the behaviour of natural complex systems. Complex systems are anything consisting of many individual units, each acting on its own, with no centralised control of the collective. The thousands of tiny interactions between the individuals leads to sophisticated ’emergent’ behaviour at the group level, such as solving mazes and trade-offs, seemingly telepathic group movements or self-assembled structures. I spend my time figuring out the mechanisms and simple behavioural rules that individuals use to gain the benefits of emergent collective behaviour, and working out ways we can implement those rules in human systems.