Cole Mathis

Cole is interested in the difference between living and non-living systems with the goal of understanding the origin of life. He will be working with Prof Chris Kempes and External Faculty Prof Sara Walker to develop a life detection system that can be used to identify living systems on other worlds, and also the emergence of de novo living systems in the lab. He is using a novel theoretical approach known as Assembly Theory and connecting that theory directly to experimental measurements using a combination of first principles and large data sets.

 

Cole is a physicist, astrobiologist and complex systems scientist. A central theme in his research is connecting theoretical ideas from physics and complex systems science with experimental approaches in chemistry and data driven approaches in astrobiology.

 

He is NASA Astrobiology Fellow, and a Postdoctoral scholar at the Beyond Center at Arizona State University. Prior to his current position Cole worked in the Cronin Lab at the University of Glasgow where he was a postdoc and team leader in the Artificial Life team. He has a Ph.D. in physics from Arizona State University.