My research investigates the theoretical foundations of evolutionary dynamics, evolutionary computation, and their related mathematics. My focus is on higher order phenomena — the evolution of evolvability, robustness, modularity, phase transitions, genetic systems, and the genotype-phenotype map. In pursuit of these areas I have contributed to the spectral theory of linear operators. My work employs mathematical and numerical analysis, and computational experiments.
Highlights of recent activities:
February, 2013: Invitation to serve on the Advisory Board of a European Commission FET Open Young Explorers grant.
February, 2013: Invitation to be a visiting researcher at the Mathematical Biosciences Institute, Ohio State University.
December, 2012:
Invited by Prof. Amir Niknejad to give a talk at the 18th International Linear Algebra Society Meeting, Matrix Methods in Computational Systems Biology and Medicine, June 3-7, 2013, Warwick, Rhode Island.
July, 2012: Invited talk, “A New Inequality on the Spectral Bound of Resolvent Positive Operators that Unifies Results on the Evolution of Dispersal”, Special Session on “Dispersal in Heterogeneous Landscapes” 9th American Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) Conference on Dynamical Systems Differential Equations and Applications, Orlando, Florida, July 1-5, 2012.
Feburary, 2012:
Invitation to join the Scientific Advisory Board of the EU project, AlgeGRASP, to investigate applying Krohn-Rhodes coordinatizations to Systems Biology and other fields.
December, 2011:
National Science Foundation appointment as a site visit panelist for the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, an NSF Science and Technology Center, East Lansing, Michigan.
February, 2011: Recipient of the Onipa`a Award, the Maui Sierra Club's “highest honor, for outstanding service to the environment, in recognition of: Standing Firm to Protect The `Aina.&rdquo
2010-2012: Reviewer of submissions to the journals:
Acta Biotheretica,
Advances in Complex Systems,
Animal Behaviour,
Artificial Life,
BioEssays,
Bioinformatics,
Biological Journal of the Linnean Society
BioSystems,
Bulletin of Mathematical Biology,
Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines,
IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation,
Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence,
Journal of Theoretical Biology,
PLOS One,
Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA,
Theoretical Computer Science,
Theoretical Population Biology.
2010-2012: Program committee service for:
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) 2010,
A-Life 12, A-Life 13,
European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL) 2011,
EuroGP 2010-2013,
GECCO 2010-2013,
IEEE ALIFE 2011-2012,
IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation 2010-2012,
IEEE Symposium Series in Computational Intelligence (SSCI) 2011, 2013.
Research Interests
Theoretical population genetics.
Theory of nonnegative matrices, Markov processes, and spectral graph theory.
The evolution of organismal complexity.
Exon shuffling in protein evolution, the genotype-phenotype map, development.
2011: Recipient of the Onipa`a Award, the Maui Sierra Club's “highest honor, for outstanding service to the environment, in recognition of: Standing Firm to Protect The `Aina.&rdquo
2001: A method for restoration of degraded audio signals.
1998: Design of a dual-filter modification of a cryofiltration apheresis device. Clinical use cited in Siami, G. A. 2005. “Cryofiltration Techniques and Clinical Indications”, Preliminary Program, 5th World Congress of the International Society for Apheresis,
Therapeutic Apheresis and Dialysis, Volume 9, Issue 2: 119-122.
Altenberg, L. 2004. Modularity in Evolution: Some Low-Level Questions. In Modularity: Understanding the Development and Evolution of Complex Natural Systems, Diego Rasskin-Gutman and Werner Callebaut, editors. MIT Press, ISBN 0262033267.
Altenberg, L. 2004. Open Problems in the Spectral Analysis of Evolutionary Dynamics. Pages 73-99 in Frontiers of Evolutionary Computation, ed. Anil Menon, Genetic Algorithms And Evolutionary Computation Series Vol. 11, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston, ISBN 1402075243.
Altenberg, L. 1995. The Schema Theorem and Price's Theorem. In Foundations of Genetic Algorithms 3, ed. Darrell Whitley and Michael Vose. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco, pp. 23-49.
Altenberg, L. 1995. Genome growth and the evolution of the genotype-phenotype map. In Evolution and Biocomputation: Computational Models of Evolution, ed. Wolfgang Banzhaf and Frank H. Eeckman. Lecture Notes in Computer Science vol. 899. Springer-Verlag, pp. 205-259.
Altenberg, L. 1994. Emergent phenomena in genetic programming. In Proceedings of the Third Annual Conference on Evolutionary Programming, ed. Anthony V. Sebald and Lawrence J. Fogel. World Scientific, pp. 233-241.
Altenberg, L. and D. Brutlag. 1986. Selection for Modularity in the Genome: Reading Frame Evidence for Exon Shuffling. (Cited in: Doolittle, W.F. 1987. The Origin and Function of Intervening Sequences in DNA: A Review. American Naturalist 130: 915-928; and Doolittle, W.F. 1987. What Introns Have to Tell Us: Hierarchy in Genome Evolution. Cold Spring Harb Symp Quant Biol 52: 907-913
)
Maui County Council, 2008. Language establishing a 130 acre conservation easement to protect native Hawaiian dry forest in Condition #27 of Ordinance #3554: A Bill for an Ordinance to Repeal Ordinance No. 2171 (1992) and to Establish Kihei-Makena Project District 9 (Wailea 670) Zoning (Conditional Zoning), for Approximately 670 Acres Situated at Paeahu, Palauea, Keahou, Maui, Hawaii.
Altenberg, L. 1991. The Ecological Living Group. Threshold 4 (2): 21-22. The network newsletter of the Student Environmental Action Coalition.
Altenberg, L. 1991. Show Some Class, Build a Green House, contributed sections in the Student Environmental Action Coalition, ed., The Student Environmental Action Guide. The Earth-Works Group, Berkeley, CA.
Altenberg, L. 1991. The Student-run Course. Threshold 4 (1): 21-23. The network newsletter of the Student Environmental Action Coalition.
Altenberg, L. 1990. Student Co-ops and Ecocity Action. In C. Canfield, ed., Ecocity Conference 1990: Report of the First International Ecocity Conference, pp. 77-78. Urban Ecology, Berkeley, CA.
Altenberg, L. 1990. Earth Day Blues. The Missing Link 7 (5): 5, April 1990. Duke University.
Altenberg, L. 1990. The Robber Baron and the Co-op Movement: Leland Stanford's Forgotten Vision, Worker Co-op (Toronto) 10 (1): 18-22.
2001-present: Associate Editor, BioSystems:
Research in linear algebra, theoretical population biology, and evolutionary computation.
2002-2007: Department of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa: Associate Professor:
Research on evolutionary computation and theoretical population genetics.
1999-2001: Department of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa: Adjunct Assistant Professor:
Research on evolutionary computation and theoretical population genetics.
2000, April: Santa Fe Institute: Invited Visiting Researcher:
Working Group on Evolvability, Evolutionary Dynamics Program.
1997-1998: On leave at Vanderbilt University Medical Center:
Research on cryoglobulinemia, monoclonal gammopathies, cryofiltration apheresis, and Chlamydia pneumoniae. Invention of a dual-filter cryofiltration system, application of Biaxin to cryoglobulinemia, development of a cryoglobulinemia information site on the Web.
1998, October: Santa Fe Institute: Invited Visiting Researcher:
Adaptive Computation Program.
1994-1997: Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, University of Hawaii: Research Affiliate:
Theoretical foundations and design innovations for evolutionary computation. Visiting the Maui High Performance Computing Center, implementing genetic programming on the SP2 scalable parallel supercomputer.
1995, Summer: Santa Fe Institute: Invited Visiting Researcher:
Adaptive Computation Program.
1993-1994: Institute for Statistics and Decision Sciences, Duke University: Instructor:
Theory of genetic algorithms and genetic programming as dynamical systems.
1991-1993: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University, Prof. Peter Haff, PI: Research Associate:
Computational study of self-organizing patterns in sediment flow.
Theory and design of genetic algorithms for optimization.
3D animation of dynamical systems on Silicon Graphics workstations. Theory on the evolution of genotype-phenotype maps, fitness landscapes, and genetic knowledge representation. Bifurcations in globally coupled maps. Population sustainability in heterogeneous habitats. C programming, LaTeX, Unix, NEXTSTEP.
1991: Complex Systems Summer School, Santa Fe Institute: Postdoctoral Training:
Study of topics in complex system sciences. Working group on theory of rugged adaptive landscapes. Presentations on the evolution of genetic operators and issues in evolutionary theory. Use of Sun Sparc workstations.
1988-1991: Department of Zoology, Duke University, Prof. Marcy K. Uyenoyama, PI: Research Scientist:
Mathematical models of evolution involving complex breeding systems and multiple genes.
Analysis of chaos produced from frequency-dependent natural selection models.
Pascal and Mathematica programming. Initiated the First International Eco-City Conference, the Duke Recycling Program, the Green House ecological student residence. Taught a course on ecologically sustainable culture. System manager for NeXT workstation.
1987: Department of Statistics, North Carolina State University, Prof. C. Clark Cockerham, PI: Postdoctoral Fellow:
Research topics in theoretical population genetics.
1984-1986: Department of Biochemistry, Stanford University, Prof. Douglas Brutlag, PI: Dean's Postdoctoral Fellow:
Theory on exon shuffling in protein evolution, and statistical analysis of DNA sequence data.
1979-1984: Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Prof. Marcus W. Feldman, PI: Research Assistant:
Theory on the evolution of modifier genes and genetic systems. Theory of positive matrices.
1978-1979: Department of Genetics, University of California, Berkeley, Prof. Glenys Thomson, PI: Undergraduate Honors Research:
Theory of frequency-dependent natural selection.
Teaching Positions
2008: Outreach College, University of Hawaii at Manoa: Senior Lecturer.
Course Title: ICS 674: Evolutionary Computation.
2006, 2007, 2008: Santa Fe Institute Complex Systems Summer School in Beijing: Lecturer. Sponsored by the Santa Fe Institute in cooperation with the Institute of Theoretical Physics and the Graduate School, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS). Held at the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Beijing, China. Director: David P Feldman.
2002-2007: Department of Information and Computer Sciences, University of Hawaii at Manoa: Associate Professor.
Course Titles: Discrete Mathematics II, Evolutionary Computation, Genetic Programming.
2004: Collaboration with Prof. Anne Coopersmith, Department of Biology, Maui Community College.
Course Title: Action Research on a BioSecurity System for Hawai`i.
2000: Short Courses on the Mathematics of Biological Complexity, University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
Course Title: Complexity in Evolutionary Biology: Genetic Algorithms, Cellular Automata and Adaptive Landscapes. October 1-4, 2000.
1993: Instructor, Institute for Statistics and Decision Sciences, Duke University.
Course Title: Evolutionary Computation Methods: Genetic algorithms, simulated annealing, genetic programming, artificial life and other topics.
1990: Instructor, House Course Program, Duke University.
Course Title: Escaping the Ecocidal Culture: Student Explorations of Ecological Lifestyles, Careers, and Social Change.
1986: Lecturer, Innovative Academic Courses, Stanford University.
Course Title: Democracy Beyond the Ballot Box: An Introduction to the World of Cooperatives.
1980-1982: Teaching Assistant, Dept. of Biological Sciences, Stanford University.
Course Title: Cell Development and Morphogenesis, Prof. Paul Green. Biostatistics, Prof. Marcus W. Feldman.
Invited Talks
“A New Inequality on the Spectral Bound of Resolvent Positive Operators that Unifies Results on the Evolution of Dispersal”, Special Session on “Dispersal in Heterogeneous Landscapes” 9th American Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) Conference on Dynamical Systems Differential Equations and Applications, Orlando, Florida, July 1-5, 2012.
Lectured at the New England Complex Systems Institute Summer School, Brandeis University Computer Science Department, and Icosystem, Boston. June, 2009.
Santa Fe Institute workshop, “Fighting Modern Malware III,” October 15-17, 2008. Santa Fe, New Mexico. Organized by Matt Williamson (Sana Security) and Eric Davis (Google).
Santa Fe Institute workshop, “Fighting Modern Malware II,” October 10-12, 2007. Santa Fe, New Mexico. Organized by Matt Williamson (Sana Security) and Eric Davis (Google).
Invited Plenary Speaker, and Biology Session Chair, for the First IEEE Symposium on Artificial Life, Honolulu, Hawai`i. April 1-5, 2007. Hussein A. Abbass, Mark Bedau, Stefano Nolfi, Janet Wiles co-chairs.
Santa Fe Institute workshop, “The Dynamic Structure of Robustness,” January 4-6, 2007. Santa Fe, New Mexico. Erica Jen and Michele Girvan, co-chairs.
Santa Fe Institute Workshop On Software Evolvability, “The Road To Software Evolvability,”. David Ackley and Stephanie Forest, co-chairs. July, 2005. Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Dept. of Knowledge-Based Mathematical Systems, Erich Peter Klement, host. Johannes Kepler University, Linz, July, 2003.
Konrad Lorenz Institute, Altenberg, Austria. Brown Bag Discussions, June 24 , 2003: “Robustness or Evolvability: Which Will Prevail?”
Special Lecture, IEEE World Congress on Computational Intelligence 2002, WCCI2002, Honolulu, Hawai`i. David Fogel, General Chair. May 12-17, 2002: “The Problem of Knowledge Incorporation in Evolutionary Algorithms”.
Plenary Speaker, IEEE Congress on Evolutionary Computation 2001, CEC2001, Seoul, South Korea. Jong-Hwan Kim, General Chair. May 27-30, 2001: “Exploration vs. Exploitation: Which Do Emergent Representations Choose?”
Plenary Speaker, EuroGP 2001. Network of Excellence in Evolutionary Computation, Lake Como, Italy. Julian Miller, Marco Tomassini, Co-chairs. April 18-20, 2001.
Altenberg Workshops in Theoretical Biology, Modularity: Understanding the Development and Evolution of Complex Natural Systems. Konrad Lorenz Institute, Altenberg, Austria. October 26-29, 2000.
Keynote speaker, Evolvability Workshop, Artificial Life 7 Conference. Chrystopher Nehaniev, Chair; Mark Bedau, Conference Chair. August 1-8, 2000, Reed College, Portland Oregon.
Congress on Evolutionary Computation, Special Session on Theory and Foundations of Evolutionary Computation. David Fogel, Chair. July 16-19, 2000, San Diego, CA. Tutorial on Population Genetics and Evolutionary Computation.
Santa Fe Institute, Evolvability Working Group. Mark Bedau, Paul Marrow, Tom Ray, Chairs. April 6-9, 2000.
Workshop on Computational Evolutionary Biology and Ecology, Florida State University. Joe Travis, Chair. May 6-8, 1999. Tallahassee, FL.
Santa Fe Institute Workshop, Towards a Comprehensive Dynamics of Evolution: Exploring the Interplay of Function, Selection, Neutrality, and Accident. “Genome Growth and the Evolution of Evolvability”. October 1998, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
New England Complex Systems Institute, Founding Conference. “The Evolution of Complex Organisms: Compression, Modularity, and Knowledge Representation”. October 1997. Nashua, New Hampshire.
Santa Fe Institute Workshop, Adaptive Search on Biological and Computational Landscapes. “Genome Growth and the Evolution of the Genotype-Phenotype Map”. July 21-23, 1995, Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Third Annual Conference on Evolutionary Programming. “Emergent Phenomena in Genetic Programming,” February, 1994, San Diego, CA.
Center for Computational Ecology, Yale University. “Theory on the evolution of the genotype-phenotype map,” September, 1992, New Haven, CT.
Biocomputation Workshop, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “Theory on the evolution and complexity of the genotype-phenotype map,” June, 1992, Monterey, CA.
Santa Fe Institute, Complex Systems Summer School. “How genetic operators can evolve,” June 1991, Santa Fe, NM.
North American Students of Cooperation Institute, University of Michigan. “The Co-op Angle on Student Activism,” November 1991, Ann Arbor, MI.
Center for Nonlinear and Complex Systems, Duke University. “Chaos from a model of frequency-dependent natural selection,” 1991.
Duke University Program in Genetics Colloquium, RNA: Genetics, Processing, and Post-transcriptional Control. “Exon shuffling in protein evolution: some theoretical implications,” 1991.
Interdisciplinary Research Center and Molecular Biology Institute Conference, Information Theory and Genome Sequencing, San Diego State University. “Selection for modularity in the genome,” April, 1990, San Diego, California.
Department of Mathematics, San Diego State University. “Selective forces on inheritance: genome congealing as a cousin to simulated annealing,” April, 1990.
Urban Ecology, First International Ecological City Conference. “Education for the ecological city movement: The importance of free social spaces in the university.” April 1990, Berkeley, CA.
National Youth Science Camp. “Curious meta-creatures of the new evolutionary landscape.” July, 1987, Bartow, West Virginia.
December, 2011:
National Science Foundation appointment as a site visit panelist for the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action, an NSF Science and Technology Center, East Lansing, Michigan.
August, 2007, National Science Foundation, Panelist for the Advancing Theory in Biology Program, Division of Emerging Frontiers.
Service on Program Committees
AAAI Fall Symposium Series: 1995. Genetic Programming Track.
ALife: 2006 - present, .
Conference on Evolutionary Programming: 1998 (Seventh Annual, EP98).
Congress on Evolutionary Computation — CEC: 1999 - present.
European Workshop on Genetic Programming (EuroGP): 1999 - present.
Foundations of Computational Intelligence (FOCI): 2007.
Contributor, Maui Forest Bird Recovery Project Meeting on the Po`ouli, June 25, 2002, Maui Community College. Advocated cryopreservation of tissue for future cloning.
Volunteer, Auwahi Restoration Team, 2001-present, Auwahi, Maui, and Pu`u O Kali Restoration Group, 2003-present.
Initiator of the First International Ecological City Conference, Berkeley, CA, March 1990. Organized by Urban Ecology.
Organizer and member of the Operating Board, of Duke Recycles. Dept. of Material Support, Duke University, Durham, NC, 1989-1992.
Member, Committee for The Heat Is On, a week of education at Duke University on global warming, sponsored by the Union of Concerned Scientists, November, 1989.
Member, Conference Committee, Threshold: A Conference on Environmental Action, University of North Carolina, October, 1989. Sponsored by the Student Environmental Action Coalition.
Member, Environmental Advisory Council, Earth Day 1990, Stanford, California.
Previous:
Society for the Study of Evolution, American Society of Naturalists, American Association for the Advancement of Science, The Nature Conservancy, The Sierra Club, The Native Hawaiian Plant Society, Urban Ecology, Maui Outdoor Circle.