A Unique Educational & Career Opportunity with Stephen Wolfram

A unique opportunity to do original research at the frontiers of science, the Wolfram Science Summer School helps about 40 students from a diverse range of scientific backgrounds learn about Stephen Wolfram's A New Kind of Science (NKS) and apply it to their fields of interest. Most of these students are advanced undergraduates and early graduate students, but those in different circumstances are considered. We are looking for students who want to move their careers in the NKS direction. Read more »

Class of 2011

Allen Downey

Bio [2011]

Allen Downey is a professor of computer science at the Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Massachusetts. Previously, he taught at Wellesley College and Colby College and held research positions at Boston University and the San Diego Supercomputer Center. In 2009–10, he was a visiting scientist at Google, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He has a PhD in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley and bachelor's and master's degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Allen is the author of several textbooks, including How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Python for Software Design; published by Cambridge University Press, Think Stats, forthcoming from O'Reilly Media, and The Little Book of Semaphores, published by Green Tea Press. All of his books are available under a free license that allows readers to copy and modify them. He writes a blog about statistics called Probably Overthinking It.

Allen's interests include cooking, gardening, and running. In 2011, he finished the Boston Marathon in 3:45 and ran a 5k in 19:55.

Project Title

Evolution of Road Networks

Project

Road networks evolve over time, subject to geography, economic forces, and human activity. The goal of this project is to explore simple algorithms that model this evolution.

Favorite Four-Color Totalistic Cellular Automaton

Rule 115413