People

Douglas Axe

is the director of Biologic Institute and author of Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed (HarperOne). His research uses both experiments and computer simulations to examine the functional and structural constraints on the evolution of proteins and protein systems. After a Caltech PhD, he held postdoctoral and research scientist positions at the University of Cambridge, the Cambridge Medical Research Council Centre, and the Babraham Institute in Cambridge. His work and ideas have been featured in many scientific journals, including the Journal of Molecular Biology, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Nature, and in such books as Signature in the Cell and Darwin’s Doubt by Stephen Meyer.

Günter Bechly

is a German paleontologist and senior research scientist at Biologic Institute. His research focuses on the fossil history of insects, discontinuities in the history of life, and the waiting time problem. He earned his Ph.D., summa cum laude, in paleontology from the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen (Germany), where he studied the evolution of dragonflies and their wings. He worked from 1999-2016 as curator for amber and fossil insects at the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, as successor of Dieter Schlee and Willi Hennig. He has described more than 160 new fossil taxa including three new insect orders, and published more than 70 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and a book with Cambridge University Press. His research has received broad international media coverage, in particular his discoveries of Coxoplectoptera and the predatory roach Manipulator.

Stuart Burgess

is Professor of Design and Nature and Head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bristol in England. Among his primary interests is the discovery of design principles in living systems for re-application in man-made systems. This has led his research team in a number of interesting directions, including a study of insect flight that has inspired designs for miniature flying machines called MAVs (micro air vehicles).

Brendan Dixon

is a software architect who joined Biologic Institute in 2006 to design and build the software for the Stylus project. He received a BS in business administration and information systems from Oregon State, and has worked for Microsoft, IBM, and Apple. At Microsoft he was an architect and lead developer on the CSS–X/HTML layout engine introduced in Internet Explorer 4.

Winston Ewert

is a senior research scientist at Biologic Institute and a senior researcher of the Evolutionary Informatics Lab. He earned his Ph.D. in computer engineering at Baylor University, studying under Dr. Robert Marks (head of the Evolutionary Informatics Lab). He has published numerous papers involving computer simulations of evolution, specified complexity, and swarm intelligence in the IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, BIO-Complexity, and Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith.

Ann Gauger

is a senior research scientist at Biologic Institute. Her work uses molecular genetics and genomic engineering to study the origin, organization and operation of metabolic pathways. She received a BS in biology from MIT, and a PhD in developmental biology from the University of Washington, where she studied cell adhesion molecules involved in Drosophila embryogenesis. As a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard she cloned and characterized the Drosophila kinesin light chain. Her research has been published in Nature, Development, and the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

Guillermo Gonzalez

is an associate professor of astronomy at Grove City College. He received his PhD in astronomy from the University of Washington, followed by post-doctoral studies at the University of Texas, Austin, and the University of Washington. He is co-originator of the Galactic Habitable Zone concept, which identifies the region of the Milky Way Galaxy that is most habitable to complex life. This idea captured the October 2001 cover story of Scientific American. He has published 69 articles in refereed astronomy and astrophysical journals and is coauthor of the second edition of Observational Astronomy, an advanced college astronomy textbook. In 2004 he coauthored The Privileged Planet with Jay Richards.

David Keller

is an associate professor of chemistry at the University of New Mexico. His research focuses on the physics of force generation in molecular machines and involves both mathematical modeling of molecular dynamics and ultra-sensitive experimental probing by atomic force microscopy. He received his PhD from UC Berkeley and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. His work has appeared in numerous journals, including Physics Today, Nature, Surface Science, and Biochemistry.

Matti Leisola

is Professor of Bioprocess Technology of Aalto University. His habilitation in biotechnology was completed at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). The research on enzyme engineering and function and other aspects of biotechnology done under his direction has led to over 130 peer-reviewed scientific papers and about 3000 citations in the scientific literature.

Philip Lu

is a biotechnologist specializing in protein purification and process column chromatography applications. He received his BS in microbiology from the University of Washington. He has been involved in a wide range of research and development projects, including studies of glycoprotein G from the Herpes Simplex II virus and bringing the cytokine product “Leukine” from development to production for Immunex.

Robert J. Marks II

is a Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Baylor University. Working with mathematician William Dembski, he has pioneered mathematical and engineering approaches to study how evolving systems incorporate, transform, and export information. He holds three patents and is the recipient of many professional awards, including the IEEE Centennial Medal and the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society Golden Jubilee Award. He has published 120 peer-reviewed articles and 21 book chapters, and is author, coauthor or editor of eight books published by IEEE, MIT Press and Oxford University Press.

Brian Miller

is Research Coordinator for Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. He holds a BS in physics with a minor in engineering from MIT and a PhD in complex systems physics from Duke University. He has published in such journals as Physical Review Letters International Review of Science, and Religions. His primary interests include the rarity of proteins, origin of life, the application of engineering principles to biology, and the fine-tuning of the laws of physics. He helps lead a team of engineers and biologists applying engineering principles to the study of biological systems.

Colin Reeves

is Emeritus Professor of Operational Research in the School of Mathematical and Information Sciences at Coventry University in England. His work on combinatorial optimization methods has focused on genetic algorithms, a class of search methods based on principles of biological evolution. This research has resulted in over 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers and several books, including Genetic Algorithms—Principles and Perspectives.

Mariclair Reeves

is a research scientist at Biologic Institute. Her research uses molecular cloning and genetic mutation to test the evolutionary feasibility of recruiting enzymes to new functions. She holds a BS in Animal Science from the University of Delaware and a PhD in cell and molecular biology from the University of Hawaii Mānoa in Honolulu. As a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Hawaii School of Medicine, she studied the effects of Selenoprotein M deletion on neuronal cell populations from mice.

Richard Sternberg

is a Research Collaborator at the National Museum of Natural History. He joined Biologic Institute as a principal investigator in 2007. With expertise in evolutionary biology and bioinformatics, he studies the organization of genomic information and how it relates to organismal form. Holding PhDs in molecular evolution and in systems science, he has been a staff scientist at the National Center for Biotechnology Information and a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, where he served as editor of theProceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. More information is available at his website: http://www.richardsternberg.org/.

Jonathan Wells

is a cell and developmental biologist with a PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from UC Berkeley. His current research includes experimental testing of a hypothesis about centriole function with implications for cancer, and theoretical work on the role of endogenous electric fields in establishing spacial coordinate systems to control morphogenesis in animal embryos. His work has appeared in BioSystems,Development, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Lisanne Winslow

is a professor of biology at Northwestern College. Her research focuses on the cellular biology of sea urchin immune cells. She received her BS, MS, and PhD from Rutgers University. She was recently awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research on the structure and function of sea urchin immune cells at the Misaki Marine Biological Station in Japan.