Lee Altenberg is an American theoretical biologist. He is on the faculty of the Departments of Information and Computer Sciences and of Mathematics at the

University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa The University of Hawaii at Mānoa is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Hawaiʻi system and houses the main offic ...

. He is best known for his work that helped establish the evolution of evolvability and modularity in the genotype–phenotype map as areas of investigation in evolutionary biology, for moving theoretical concepts between the fields of

evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes such as natural selection, common descent, and speciation that produced the diversity of life on Earth. In the 1930s, the discipline of evolutionary biolo ...

and

evolutionary computation Evolutionary computation from computer science is a family of algorithms for global optimization inspired by biological evolution, and the subfield of artificial intelligence and soft computing studying these algorithms. In technical terms ...

, and for his mathematical unification and generalization of modifier gene models for the evolution of biological information transmission, putting under a single mathematical framework the evolution of mutation rates, recombination rates, sexual reproduction rates, and dispersal rates. Altenberg is an associate editor of the journal '' BioSystems'', and serves on the editorial boards of the journals '' Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines'' and ''

Artificial Life Artificial life (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 biochemistry. The discipline ...

'', and on the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Task Force on Artificial Life and Complex Adaptive Systems. He is the son of actress Elizabeth Lee.

Education

Altenberg received his B.A. in genetics in 1980 at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

with an honors thesis advised by Glenys Thomson on the theory of

frequency-dependent selection Frequency-dependent selection is an evolutionary process by which the fitness (biology), fitness of a phenotype or genotype depends on the phenotype or genotype composition of a given population. * In positive frequency-dependent selection, the fit ...

. He received his Ph.D. in biological sciences in 1985 at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

with advisor Marcus W. Feldman with a dissertation that unified models of modifier gene evolution.

Career

Altenberg held postdoctoral fellowships at Stanford University, North Carolina State University, and Duke University. While a postdoctoral fellow at

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

, Altenberg offered the first course on

to be given there. When his father became ill with

cryoglobulinemia Cryoglobulinemia is a rare medical condition characterized by the presence of cryoglobulins in the blood. Cryoglobulins are abnormal proteins composed of immunoglobulins and sometimes complement components. Cryoglobulins specifically form g ...

, he moved with him to

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

for the warm temperatures. In 2002 Altenberg was appointed associate professor of Information and Computer Sciences at the

. He again offered the first courses in evolutionary computation to be given there. In 2013 Altenberg was a Long-Term Visitor at the

Mathematical Biosciences Institute The Mathematical Biosciences Institute (MBI) was an institution of higher learning affiliated with the Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. MBI received major funding from the National Science Foundation. History Under the leadership of fo ...

Ohio State University The Ohio State University (Ohio State or OSU) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio, United States. A member of the University System of Ohio, it was founded in 1870. It is one ...

and in 2014–2016 was a Senior Fellow at the

Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research The Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (KLI) is an international center for advanced studies in the life and sustainability sciences. It is a "Home to Theory that Matters" that supports the articulation, analysis, and in ...

. The University of Hawaiʻi Board of Regents approved his promotion to Full Professor in 2020. Since 2013, Altenberg has been a Research Scholar at the

Ronin Institute The Ronin Institute for Independent Scholarship, commonly called just the Ronin Institute, was an independent scholarly research institute located in Montclair, New Jersey Montclair is a Township (New Jersey), township in Essex County, New Je ...

Research

Altenberg's research focuses on uncovering the mathematical relationships within the dynamics of biological evolution, and

evolutionary algorithms Evolutionary algorithms (EA) reproduce essential elements of the biological evolution in a computer algorithm in order to solve "difficult" problems, at least Approximation, approximately, for which no exact or satisfactory solution methods are k ...

. He is particularly interested in higher order phenomena such as the evolution of

evolvability Evolvability is defined as the capacity of a system for adaptive evolution. Evolvability is the ability of a population of organisms to not merely generate genetic diversity, but to generate '' adaptive'' genetic diversity, and thereby evolve thr ...

, the evolution of

genetic information A nucleic acid sequence is a succession of Nucleobase, bases within the nucleotides forming alleles within a DNA (using GACT) or RNA (GACU) molecule. This succession is denoted by a series of a set of five different letters that indicate the orde ...

transmission, and the evolution of the genotype–phenotype map. His chief accomplishments have been (1) to unify the theory for the evolution of genetic systems (recombination and mutation rates) by embedding them in the space of inclusive inheritance, which includes spatial as well as cultural information, and (2) to develop the concept of the

variational properties In evolutionary biology, the variational properties of an organism are those properties relating to the production of variation among its offspring. In a broader sense variational properties include phenotypic plasticity. Wagner, G. P. and Altenbe ...

of organisms as phenomena subject to evolutionary dynamics. This includes the discovery of mechanisms that lead to the evolution of

, and

modularity Modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a system into varying ...

in the genotype–phenotype map. The mathematical inclusiveness of his theoretical work has made it applicable to problems in evolutionary computation. His work on the evolution of biological information transmission has required development of new spectral theorems for

linear operators In mathematics, and more specifically in linear algebra, a linear map (also called a linear mapping, linear transformation, vector space homomorphism, or in some contexts linear function) is a mapping V \to W between two vector spaces that pr ...

, including a unification of reaction-diffusion theory predicting the evolution of slow dispersal with the Reduction Principle predictions for models of mutation, recombination and migration rate evolution. He has applied spectral theory to understand the evolution of

mutational robustness In evolutionary biology, robustness of a biological system (also called biological or genetic robustness) is the persistence of a certain characteristic or trait in a system under perturbations or conditions of uncertainty. Robustness in developm ...

. Altenberg introduced a number of concepts which have been adopted in several fields: * introduction of the

Price equation In the theory of evolution and natural selection, the Price equation (also known as Price's equation or Price's theorem) describes how a trait or allele changes in frequency over time. The equation uses a covariance between a trait and fitness, t ...

into evolutionary computation theory *mechanisms for the evolution of evolvability and modularity *the conceptual distinction of generative and

of the genotype–phenotype map *brood selection in evolutionary algorithms *generalization of

Stuart Kauffman Stuart Alan Kauffman (born September 28, 1939) is an American medical doctor, theoretical biology, theoretical biologist, and complex systems researcher who studies the origin of life on Earth. He was a professor at the University of Chicago, Un ...

's NK Landscapes, applied to technological evolution *generalization of the Reduction Principle to infinite dimensional spaces, which unified reaction-diffusion models for the evolution of dispersal, and has been applied to epidemic models.

Environmental and societal work

*A history of

Leland Stanford Amasa Leland Stanford (March 9, 1824June 21, 1893) was an American attorney, industrialist, philanthropist, and Republican Party (United States), Republican Party politician from Watervliet, New York. He served as the eighth governor of Calif ...

's forgotten advocacy of

worker cooperatives A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by ...

*Light pollution ordinance for Maui, Hawai`i *Preservation of lowland dry native forest on Maui, Hawai`i *During the

SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, the respiratory illness responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had the Novel coronavirus, provisional nam ...

pandemic he has served with the Hawai`i Pandemic Applied Modeling Workgroup.

Awards and honors

*California delegate to the

National Youth Science Camp The National Youth Science Camp (NYSCamp) is a free residential honors program for two accomplished high school graduates from each state in the USA, plus Washington, DC. As of 2020, NYSCamp also accepts two delegates to represent Argentina, Boli ...

in 1975 * University of California Regents Scholar 1975–1979 *Elected to

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States. It was founded in 1776 at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences, ...

in 1979 *Bachelor of Arts with Distinction in General Scholarship, University of California, Berkeley, 1980 *

Stanford University School of Medicine The Stanford University School of Medicine is the medical school of Stanford University and is located in Stanford, California, United States. It traces its roots to the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, founded in San Fra ...

Dean's Postdoctoral Fellow 1985–1986 *Chair of the Native Hawaiian Plant Society on Maui 2005–2007 *Onipa`a Award in 2011, conferred by the Hawai`i Chapter of the

Sierra Club The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization with chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded in 1892, in San Francisco, by preservationist John Muir. A product of the Pro ...

, for his work in getting legislation passed to prevent

light pollution Light pollution is the presence of any unwanted, inappropriate, or excessive artificial Visible spectrum, lighting. In a descriptive sense, the term ''light pollution'' refers to the effects of any poorly implemented lighting sources, during the ...

Maui Maui (; Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ) is the second largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago, at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2). It is the List of islands of the United States by area, 17th-largest in the United States. Maui is one of ...

, and to preserve an endangered Hawaiian lowland dry forest habitat on Maui in perpetuity. *Senior Fellow of the

2014–2016 * IEEE Computational Intelligence Society Oral History Project interview in 2017 *Member of the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi) in 2020

Professional societies

Altenberg is a lifetime member of the: *

International Linear Algebra Society The International Linear Algebra Society (ILAS) is a professional mathematical society organized to promote research and education in linear algebra, matrix theory and matrix computation. It serves the international community through conferences ...

* Society for Mathematical Biology

References

External links

Lee Altenberg's homepageGoogle scholar profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Altenberg, Lee Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American population geneticists American evolutionary biologists University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa faculty Stanford University alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni