Her research group focuses on biologically-inspired multi-agent systems: collective algorithms, programming paradigms, modular and
swarm robotics, and on biological multi-agent systems: models of multicellular morphogenesis, collective insect behavior.
Programming paradigms for robust collective behavior Her primary research interest is developing programming paradigms for robust collective behavior, inspired by biology. Ultimately, the goal is to create a framework for the design and analysis of self-organising multi-agent systems. Her group's approach is to formalize these strategies as algorithms, analysis, theoretical models, and programming languages. They are especially interested in global-to-local compilation, the ability to specify user goals at the high level and automatically derive provable strategies at the agent level.
Understanding robust collective behavior in biological systems Another of her research interests is in understanding robust collective behavior in biological systems. Building artificial systems can give us insights into how complex global properties can arise from identically-programmed parts — for example, how cells can form scale-independent patterns, how large morphological variations can arise from small genetic changes, and how complex cascades of decisions can tolerate variations in timing. She is interested in mathematical and computational models of multi-cellular behavior, that capture hypotheses of cell behavior and cell-cell interactions as multi-agent systems, and can be used to provide insights into systems level behavior that should emerge. Some of her recent work has occurred in collaboration with biologist Simon Garnier at his Swarm Lab at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Their work on colonies of army ants use of self-assembled bridges to respond to terrain changes was published in Nature Communications. == Academic positions ==