Profile

Career

2007 -	RCUK Fellow in Biological Complexity	Department of Biology, University of York
2005 - 2007	Postdoctoral Research Assistant	Edinburgh
2004	Postdoctoral Research Assistant	Oxford
2002 - 2004	Royal Commission for Exhibition of 1851 Research Fellow	Oxford
2002	PhD and DIC	Imperial College, London
2000	MA	University of Cambridge
1998	Part III Mathematics	University of Cambridge
1997	BA Mathematics	University of Cambridge

Research

Overview

My current research interests are in the field of complexity and emergent phenomena in biologically inspired models. This is primarily focused on understanding how we may use both computational and analytic techniques in statistical mechanics to further our knowledge of the stability and robustness of natural systems. This is a broad area, and my current work includes: extending models based on James Lovelock's Daisyworld parable including looking for links to established theories in quantitative genetics; investigating flocking or herding behaviour in animals, and how these systems can be related to models of network rewiring; developing primitive models of quorum sensing in bacteria, especially understanding spatial effects and how this may lead to biofilm formation.

My other interests are in the field of wetting and interfacial phenomena. In particular the fluctuation behaviour of interfaces and the effect of confining substrate walls and other alternate geometries. I have approached these problems both through exact results in the context of the two-dimensional Ising model, and also by effective Hamiltonian theories.

Current projects

• StoMP (Stochastic dynamical Modelling for Prokaryotic gene regulatory networks) (Funding body: BBSRC)
• TRANSIT (Bridging the Gaps) (Funding body: EPSRC)

Research group(s)

Status	Name	Project
NERC Quota student	Nikolai Bode	Modelling the implications of collective animal motion on the underlying dynamics of social networks (with Dr Dan Franks )
White Rose student	Tacita Nye	An integrated Systems Biology approach to enterobacterial respiration (with Professor Robert Poole, University of Sheffield)

Available PhD research projects

Computational modelling of predator prey interactions; how selfish is the herd really? (for 2012 - 2013)

Co-supervisors: Dr Dan Franks, Dr Ton Timmis

Building on recent work, this Ph.D. will look at the evolution of aggregation strategies in response to predation. Using tested techniques and new algorithms this project will simulate the motion of collective shoals and flocks and allow their properties to evolve at an individual level. We are interested in the evolution of higher level avoidance strategies and manoeuvres that characterise these large macro-scale groupings.

This project is computational in nature, and programming skill would be essential. Aptitude in theoretical ecology or mathematics would be advantageous. There is an additional opportunity within this project for a student of a more engineering focus to transfer the coding environment to the player/stage platform and instantiate the simulations onto a physical system (in conjunction with the Timmis Lab).

 

Publications

Selected publications

Wood AJ (2007) A fitness approach to Daisyworld Journal of Theoretical Biology (to appear) :

Wood AJ (2007) Evolving the selfish herd: emergence of distinct aggregating strategies in an individual-based model. Proc. Royal Soc. B DOI:10.1098/rspb.2007.0306 :