contact: sersaa [at] mit.edu Office: 1-238
Associate Professor at MIT - Dept. Civil and Environmental Engineering
External Professor at Santa Fe Institute
Background: Mexico
Before joining MIT in 2016, Serguei studied systems engineering in Mexico; specialized in mathematical modeling in Italy; completed his PhD in engineering science at Oxford University; and did his postdoctoral work at the Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, Doñana Biological Station, and in the department of environmental systems at ETH. He joined the SFI external faculty in 2023.
Student - PhD Candidate
Topic: community transitions
contact: cylong [at] mit.edu Office: 1-240
Background: China
Tsinghua University, China (Bsc in Mechanical Engineering 2022)
Student - PhD Candidate
Starting Fall 2025
contact: yoramds [at] mit.edu Office: 1-240
Background: Netherlands
University of Groningen, the Netherlands (BSc in Physics, 2021)
University of Oxford, the United Kingdom (MSt in Philosophy of Physics, 2022)
Utrecht University, the Netherlands (MSc in Theoretical Physics, 2025)
Postdoc
Topic: time delays, temperature, bioenergetics
contact: ygyang [at] mit.edu Office: 1-240
Background: China
Xian Jiatong University, China (B. Eng. in Flight Design and Engineering, 2018)
Peking University, China (PhD in General Mechanics and Foundations of Mechanics, 2024)
Postdoc
Topic: species interactions, structural stability, energy
contact: ankitv [at] mit.edu Office: 1-240
Background: India
Integrated MSc Physics and B. E. Computer Science (BITS Pilani Goa Campus, Goa, India)
PhD in Complex Systems (Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden)
Italy
PhD student from 2016-2019 (MIT)
Thesis: "Parametric and nonparametric approaches to explain and predict nonlinear population dynamics in changing environments"
Professor at University College London (UK)
Hungary
PhD (University of Zurich) 2018-2020
Areas: population dynamics, structural stability, network theory
Professor at Amsterdam University (Netherlands)
China
PhD student from 2016- 2020 (MIT)
Thesis: "An environment-dependent framework to study ecological networks"
Professor at UCLA (USA)
Kuwait
PhD student from 2017-2021 (MIT)
PhD Thesis: "On equilibria and feasibility of ecological polynomial dynamical systems"
Masters Thesis: "Understanding the effects of functional responses in ecological dynamical systems"
Founder and CEO of DMATC Hedge Fund (Kuwait)
Brazil
PhD student from 2018-2022 (MIT)
PhD thesis: "Understanding and predicting responses of ecological communities to perturbations"
Postdoc at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (USA)
China
PhD student from 2020-2024 (MIT)
PhD thesis: "Understanding community changes in ecological systems: a probabilistic and geometric perspective"
Postdoc at Oxford University (UK)
China
Postdoc at MIT (2019-2020)
Topic: information theory, causal inference, network theory
Professor at Neuchatel University (Switzerland)
India
Affiliated postdoctoral researcher (2023)
Areas: ecological networks, evolutionary dynamics, complex systems, agent-based modeling
Professor at Michigan University (USA)
India
Visiting Masters Student - IISER Pune (2023-2024)
Areas: empirical dynamic modeling, microbial systems, statistical mechanics, information theory
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (BS-MS Dual Degree Program)
Masters Thesis: "Synthesizing the sensitivity of microbial communities to external perturbations"
Research assistant at Montpellier University (France)
Taiwan
Student - MEng (2025)
Topic: urban energetics
National Taiwan University, Taiwan (Bsc in Bioenvironmental Systems Engineering 2024)
USA
MIT UROP (2018)
Areas: population dynamics, structural stability, species interactions
MIT Dept. of Mathematics
Venezuela/USA
Undergraduate Research - MIT (2024-2025)
Areas: causal inference and microbial systems
Masters Student at Dartmouth University (Data Science and Public Health)
USA
Undergraduate Research - MIT (summer 2025)
Areas: causal inference and microbial systems
MIT, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Spain
Phd Visiting Student (2022)
Areas: population dynamics, structural stability, non-autonomous systems, geometry
Seville University
China
Undergraduate Visiting Student - Tsinghua University (2024)
Areas: energy, feasibility, statistical mechanics, scaling theory
Background: China
PhD at Tsinghua University, China