Geoffrey West
Biographical Information
Geoffrey West is President and Distinguished Professor, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe,
New Mexico, USA. As an undergraduate, Geoffrey West studied mathematics and physics
in the 1960s, at Cambridge University in England. He progressed to PhD studies in
theoretical physics at Stanford University in California and remained based in the U.S.
thereafter. He eventually joined the Stanford physics department faculty and later led the
particle theory group at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Though he began his academic
career and subsequently made his name in the realm of hard-core theoretical particle
physics, a long nurtured interest in biology and an unwillingness to acknowledge the
operational boundaries between the two domains led him to explore the potential for
applying quantitative methods to biological problems such as aging. In the mid-1990s
a serendipitous encounter with ecologist Jim Brown initiated his interest in the physics
of biological systems. He began in earnest to study the most complex of all systems: life.
Since then, he has made major contributions at the confluence of biology and physics,
including seminal work with Brown on biological scaling. West and his collaborators are
credited with providing a rational explanation for the universality of the quarter power
scaling laws, based on the idea that life at all scales is sustained by optimized, space-filling
fractal networks whose terminal units are invariant. His theory now permits detailed
quantitative calculations and predictions of a far broader range of biological phenomena
than previously imagined. He is currently engaged in exploring just how far these rules
have predictive value for understanding such complex phenomena as tumor development
and social ecosystems. He also believes the principals he has elucidated can be harnessed
to provide quantitative thermodynamic description of the evolution of conscious thought.
As President of the transdisciplinary Santa Fe Institute, Geoffrey West epitomizes its goal
of exploring the frontiers of knowledge by transcending the usual boundaries. He argues
that “big-picture” science can only move forward when researchers allow themselves to
ask elementary questions without feeling defensive or vulnerable. In May of 2006, Time
magazine cited Geoffrey West in its selection of the world’s top sixteen most influential
scientists and thinkers of today. |
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