Randall D. Beer is a professor of cognitive science,

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

, and informatics at

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. * Indiana Univers ...

. He was previously at

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Res ...

. His primary

research Research is "creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular attentiveness t ...

interest is in understanding how coordinated

behavior Behavior (American English) or behaviour ( British English) is the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, organisms, systems or artificial entities in some environment. These systems can include other systems or organisms as w ...

arises from the

neurodynamics Neural oscillations, or brainwaves, are rhythmic or repetitive patterns of neural activity in the central nervous system. Neural tissue can generate oscillatory activity in many ways, driven either by mechanisms within individual neurons or by ...

of an animal's nervous system, its body and its environment. He works on the

evolution Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...

and analysis of dynamical "nervous systems" for model agents, neuromechanical modeling of animals, biomorphic robotics, and

dynamical systems In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in ...

approaches to behavior and

cognition Cognition refers to "the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses". It encompasses all aspects of intellectual functions and processes such as: perception, attention, thoug ...

. More generally, he is interested in

computational Computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that follows a well-defined model (e.g., an algorithm). Mechanical or electronic devices (or, historically, people) that perform computations are known as '' computers''. An esp ...

and

theoretical biology Mathematical and theoretical biology, or biomathematics, is a branch of biology which employs theoretical analysis, mathematical models and abstractions of the living organisms to investigate the principles that govern the structure, development a ...

, including models of

metabolism Metabolism (, from el, μεταβολή ''metabolē'', "change") is the set of life-sustaining chemical reactions in organisms. The three main functions of metabolism are: the conversion of the energy in food to energy available to run c ...

gene regulation Regulation of gene expression, or gene regulation, includes a wide range of mechanisms that are used by cells to increase or decrease the production of specific gene products (protein or RNA). Sophisticated programs of gene expression are wide ...

and development. He also has a longstanding interest in the design and implementation of

dynamic programming language In computer science, a dynamic programming language is a class of high-level programming languages, which at runtime execute many common programming behaviours that static programming languages perform during compilation. These behaviors co ...

s and their environments.

Books

*''Biological neural networks in invertebrate neuroethology and robotics'' / edited by Randall D. Beer, Roy E. Ritzmann, Thomas McKenna. Boston : Academic Press, c1993. xi, 417 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. (acid-free paper) *Beer, Randall D. ''Intelligence as adaptive behavior : an experiment in computational neuroethology'' / Randall D. Beer. Boston : Academic Press, c1990. xxiii, 213 p. : ill. ; 24 cm. (alk. paper)

External links

Beer's page at Indiana University
American cognitive scientists Living people American roboticists Indiana University faculty Case Western Reserve University faculty Year of birth missing (living people) {{bioinformatics-stub