The Santa Fe Institute has selected four researchers for appointments as Omidyar Postdoctoral Fellows.
A gift from eBay Founder Pierre Omidyar and Pam Omidyar in 2008 established the Fellowship, which brings to SFI early-career scholars from the social, physical, and natural sciences. Omidyar Fellows spend up to three years exploring the major questions facing science and society in SFI’s transdisciplinary, collaborative environment.
Each year, SFI selects one to six Omidyar Fellows from an applicant field of more than 200. The goal is to maintain a continuous cohort of 12 Omidyar Fellows. All four newly selected fellows will join SFI’s community this fall.
The 2015 Omidyar Fellows are:
Marion Dumas comes to SFI from Columbia University with a PhD in sustainable development. Her research centers on social structures and behaviors, and she seeks to understand how different institutions of capitalism and democracy shape a society’s capacity to adapt, particularly to ecological constraints.
Dan Larremore studies the mathematical recombination processes that shape genes and genomes to better understand the evolution of pathogens, such as malaria. He earned his PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Colorado Boulder.
Chris Kempes holds a PhD in physical biology from MIT. He seeks to understand how different physical and abstract constraints organize evolutionary and ecological structure at different scales.
Eleanor Power investigates how human social structures are influenced by religious signaling systems, and the role such signals play in establishing trusting, cooperative, and mutually beneficial relationships. She holds a PhD in anthropology from Stanford University.
Jennifer Dunne, SFI’s Vice President for Science, says: "We are excited that our four top candidates, chosen out of an extremely large, strong, and diverse pool, accepted our offer. Marion, Chris, Dan, and Elly will broaden and deepen SFI's research portfolio."
More about the Omidyar Postdoctoral Fellowship