Christoph Carl Herbert "Chris" Adami (born August 30, 1962) is a professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, as well as professor of Physics and Astronomy, at

Michigan State University Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the fi ...

Education

Adami was born in

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

, Belgium, and graduated from the European School of Brussels I. He obtained a

Diplom A ''Diplom'' (, from grc, δίπλωμα ''diploma'') is an academic degree in the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and a similarly named degree in some other European countries including Albania, Bulgaria, Belaru ...

in physics from the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...

and an MA and a Ph.D. in theoretical

nuclear physics Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter. Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...

from

Stony Brook University Stony Brook University (SBU), officially the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is a public research university in Stony Brook, New York. Along with the University at Buffalo, it is one of the State University of New York syste ...

in 1991. Adami was a Division Prize Fellow in the lab of Steven E. Koonin at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

from 1992-1995, and was subsequently on the Caltech faculty as a senior research associate.

Career

Before joining

, he was a professor of Applied Life Sciences at the

Keck Graduate Institute Keck Graduate Institute (KGI) is a private graduate school in Claremont, California. Founded by Henry Riggs in 1997, it is the seventh and newest member of the Claremont Colleges. History Henry Riggs, then president of Harvey Mudd College, e ...

Claremont, California Claremont () is a suburban city on the eastern edge of Los Angeles County, California, United States, east of downtown Los Angeles. It is in the Pomona Valley, at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. As of the 2010 census it had a popu ...

. Adami is best known for his work on Avida, an

artificial life Artificial life (often abbreviated ALife or A-Life) is a field of study wherein researchers examine systems related to natural life, its processes, and its evolution, through the use of simulations with computer models, robotics, and biochemist ...

simulator used to study

evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life fo ...

, and for applying the theory of information to physical and biological systems. Together with

Nicolas J. Cerf Nicolas Jean Cerf (born 1965) is a Belgian physicist. He is professor of quantum mechanics and information theory at the Université Libre de Bruxelles and a member of the Royal Academies for Science and the Arts of Belgium. He received his Ph.D. ...

, Adami made significant advances in the quantum theory of information in the late 1990s.

Honors

He received the

NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal The NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal is an award of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration established in 1991. The medal is awarded to both civilian members of NASA and military astronauts. To be awarded the medal, a NASA employee ...

while serving at JPL, and was elected a

Fellow of the AAAS Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (FAAAS) is an honor accorded by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) to distinguished persons who are members of the Association. Fellows are elected ...

in 2012. He was also elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2017. On July 31, 2019, He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by The International Society for Artificial Life.

Works

* * *

References

External links

Adami's website at Michigan State UniversityAdami's public site at Michigan State UniversityList of publications at Google ScholarAdami's Blog "Spherical Harmonics"Adami's [HuffPost] BlogThe Evolutionary Origin of Complex Adaptive Features
2003 Nature Paper *

1962 births Living people 21st-century American physicists Researchers of artificial life Stony Brook University alumni Michigan State University faculty Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Complex systems scientists German emigrants to the United States Alumni of the European Schools Fellows of the American Physical Society {{physicist-stub