People

Fernando is a research fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and principal investigator of the PHIBee project. His current work focuses on the motion dynamics of foragers and information transfer in honey bee colonies. The research interests of Fernando span over computer vision, heuristic optimization, complex systems, computational ethology, and swarm intelligence.

Vito is a senior researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies (ISTC) of the Italian National Research Council (CNR) and the main supervisor of the PHIBee project. He studies collective behaviour and distributed cognition, applying the insights from biological systems to engineering artificial ones. Vito has been the principal investigator in international projects related to artificial intelligence, complex systems, robot swarms and collective intelligence.

Tim is Professor of Artificial & Collective Intelligence at Freie Universität Berlin where he teaches and studies different aspects of intelligent systems. In interdisciplinary projects, his lab investigates the individual and collective intelligence of model organisms, and develops new tools and ML algorithms. He is also active in the startup scene, as a mentor to several startups in Berlin and as a tech advisor to investors.

Rainer spent several years as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the USA, Hungary, Belgium and Germany before moving to Queen Mary University of London in 2004 as a Lecturer in Applied Mathematics. His research combines dynamical systems theory, nonequilibrium statistical physics and stochastic theory to understand complex systems, with applications to nanoscience and biology.

Michael is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Auburn University. Michael is a distinguished social insect biologist. He’s interested in how honey bee colonies function, how their nests are organized, and how individual bees detect the developmental state of their colony.