I lead the Evolving Systems Group, which studies long-term change processes using computational methods. The group brings together perspectives from evolutionary biology, macroecology, computer science, and data science to investigate how complex systems change over time and how such change can be analysed responsibly.
Our work is motivated by the observation that many systems of interest -- including evolutionary and societal systems -- are incompletely observable, and non-repeatable. This creates methodological challenges that require careful computational design rather than off-the-shelf solutions.
Many systems of scientific interest do not remain stable over time. Evolutionary systems, ecological communities, and social systems change in ways that challenge standard assumptions of stationarity, completeness, and reproducibility.
Our group studies how such systems change, why large-scale transformations occur, and how these processes can be analysed using computational methods without over-interpreting the available data.
Our group studies large-scale evolutionary and ecological patterns using fossil and other long-term data sources. Topics include macroevolutionary expansion, persistence and extinction, and the role of ecological relationships in shaping evolutionary dynamics over deep time.
Our group develops computational and data-analytic methods for studying systems that evolve over time. This includes work on modelling evolving data, detecting and characterising change processes, long-term forecasting under uncertainty, and evaluating methods when assumptions of stability do not hold.
Our group also studies robustness, bias, and responsibility in machine-learning systems, with a focus on their use in scientific contexts. This work aims to ensure that AI tools support scientific reasoning rather than produce misleading or overly confident conclusions.
Indrė Žliobaitė -- Group leader (Professor)
Donald Killian -- Postdoctoral Researcher
Jeremias Glöggler -- PhD student
Michael Mechenich -- PhD student
Rebecca Muriuki -- PhD student
Mikko Niemi -- PhD student
Otto Oksanen -- PhD student
Sania Zubaid -- PhD student
Julius Stoma -- MS student
Inkkeri Virkki -- MS student
Elli Kiiski -- MS student
Tegan Foister -- PhD student (defended in 2025)
Abigail Parker -- Postdoctoral Researcher (2022-2025)
Riikka Korolainen -- MS student (completed in 2025)
Citlali Trigos-Raczkowski -- MS student (completed in 2024)
Alexis Rojas-Briceno -- Postdoctoral Researcher (2022-2023)
Rita Beigaitė -- PhD student (defended in 2023)
Otso Velhonoja -- MS student (completed in 2023)
Ryoko Noda -- MS student (completed in 2022)
Giulia Varvara -- Research assistant/MS student (2021-2022)
Babatunde Anafi -- MS student (completed in 2021)
Openings for PhD students and postdoctoral researchers arise periodically. Our group welcomes candidates with backgrounds in evolutionary biology, palaeontology, ecology, computer science, data science, or related fields.
Our group works in close collaboration with researchers across evolutionary biology, ecology, computer science, and the humanities, both within the University of Helsinki and internationally. Many projects are explicitly interdisciplinary and combine empirical data with methodological development.
For publications related to our group’s research, see the Publications page or Google Scholar.
For official institutional information, see the University of Helsinki research group page.