CAREER: Self-Organizing Systems: Engineering and Understanding Robust Collective Behavior

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

This research investigates self-organizing systems: (1) how to engineer self-repairing distributed computing systems, (2) how to understand robustness in multicellular biology. The goal is to provide a fundamental understanding of the basic principles underlying robustness and adaptability in multicellular biological systems, and demonstrate how these principles can be applied to computing systems. Many areas in computer science critically depend on the ability to easily program robust collective behavior from massively-parallel substrates, from traditional computer networks to modular robotics. This research will significantly improve our ability to design computing systems that self-organize, self-heal, and adapt. This research will also impact biology by providing novel insights into tissue development and disease. This research has two main thrusts: (1) using insights from self-maintaining and self-healing behavior in multicellular organs, such as the heart, to design algorithms for embedded distributed systems, such as wireless sensor networks (2) developing computational models of cell level behavior, based on experimental data, that can predict novel system-level properties in epithelial tissues. These efforts will contribute to a deeper understanding of how global robustness is achieved from the decentralized interactions of large numbers of identically-programmed, unreliable agents.