Charles Ofria

Charles Ofria
Born	(1973-12-13) December 13, 1973 (age 51) New York, NY (United States)
Alma mater	Stony Brook University (B.S., 1994) California Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1999)
Known for	Digital evolution, Avida
Awards	Withrow Distinguished Scholar Award (2006, 2016) [1] NSF CAREER Award (2007) Withrow Teaching Excellence Award (2010) [2]
Scientific career
Fields	Computer Science, Evolutionary Biology
Institutions	Michigan State University
Doctoral advisor	Christoph Adami
Other academic advisors	Richard Lenski
Website	www.ofria.com

Charles A. Ofria is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Michigan State University. He is the director of the Digital Evolution (DEvo) Lab and the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action.

Early life and education

Ofira is the son of the late Charles Ofria, ^[3] who developed the first fully integrated shop management program for the automotive repair industry. He attended Stuyvesant High School and graduated from Ward Melville High School in 1991. He earned a B.S. in Computer Science, Pure Mathematics, and Applied Mathematics from Stony Brook University in 1994. He completed a Ph.D. in Computation and Neural Systems at the California Institute of Technology in 1999. ^[4]

Career

His research focuses on the relationship between computer science and Darwinian evolution. He is one of the original designers of Avida, an artificial life software platform used to study the evolutionary biology of self-replicating digital organisms. ^[5] Avida was initially developed at Caltech in 1993 by Ofria, Chris Adami and C. Titus Brown and remains under active development in his Digital Evolution Lab at Michigan State University.

Awards and Recognition

Ofria has received several awards, including:

• NSF CAREER Award (2007) ^[6]
• Withrow Excellence Award for Teaching (2010) ^[7] and Research (2006, 2016) ^[8]
• William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Award (2017) ^[9]
• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2022) ^[10]

Selected publications

Journal articles

• Clune J, Pennock RT, Ofria C, Lenski RE (2012) Ontogeny tends to recapitulate phylogeny in digital organisms" The American Naturalist 180: E54–E63. (pdf)
• Clune J, Goldsby HJ, Ofria C, and Pennock RT (2011) Selective pressures for accurate altruism targeting: Evidence from digital evolution for difficult-to-test aspects of inclusive fitness theory. Proceedings of the Royal Society. 278: 666-674. (PDF)
• Clune J, Stanley KO, Pennock RT, Ofria C (2011) On the performance of indirect encoding across the continuum of regularity. IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation. 15(3): 346-367. (PDF)
• Clune J, Misevic D, Ofria C, Lenski RE, Elena SF, and Sanjuán R. Natural selection fails to optimize mutation rates for long-term adaptation on rugged fitness landscapes ^[11]
• Ofria C, Huang W and Torng E. On the gradual evolution of complexity and the sudden emergence of complex features ^[12]
• Elena SF, Wilke CO, Ofria C, and Lenski RE. Effects of population size and mutation rate on the evolution of mutational robustness ^[13]
• Ostrowski E, Ofria C, and Lenski RE, Ecological specialization and adaptive decay in digital organisms ^[14]
• Lenski RE, Barrick JE, Ofria C. Balancing Robustness and Evolvability ^[15]
• Misevic D, Ofria C, and Lenski RE. Sexual reproduction reshapes the genetic architecture of digital organisms ^[16]

Publications on Avida

• R. E. Lenski, C. Ofria, T. C. Collier, C. Adami (1999). Genomic Complexity, Robustness, and Genetic Interactions in Digital Organisms. Nature400:661-664. Abstract
• C. Adami, C. Ofria, and T.C. Collier (2000). Evolution of biological complexity. "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences" 97:4463-4468. Abstract
• C. O. Wilke, J. L. Wang, C. Ofria, R. E. Lenski, and C. Adami (2001). Evolution of Digital Organisms at High Mutation Rate Leads To Survival of the Flattest. Nature412:331-333 Abstract.
• R. E. Lenski, C. Ofria, R. T. Pennock, and C. Adami (2003). The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Features. Nature423:139-145. Abstract
• S.S. Chow, C.O. Wilke, C. Ofria, R. E. Lenski, and C. Adami (2004). Adaptive Radiation from Resource Competition in Digital Organisms. Science305:84-86 Abstract.

References

1. "Ofria and Owen receive Withrow Awards". Michigan State University. Archived from the original on 4 June 2016. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
2. "Ofria and Tan receive Withrow awards". Michigan State University. Archived from the original on 25 March 2015. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
3. "Charles Ofria (senior)". FamilyCar.com. Archived from the original on 8 February 2013. Retrieved 11 December 2011.
4. Computer Science Michigan state University
5. "Testing Darwin". Discover Magazine . February 2005.
6. "Charles Ofria Receives NSF CAREER Award". Michigan State University. 2007. Archived from the original on 2012-04-06.
7. "Ofria and Tan Receive Withrow Awards". 2010.
8. "Jain, Ofria, and Stirewalt win Withrow Awards". 2006.
9. "2017 William J. Beal Outstanding Faculty Awards". 2017.
10. "Ofria named AAAS Fellow in record year for Spartan inductees - Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior". 2022.
11. Clune, J; Misevic, D; Ofria, C; Lenski, RE; Elena, SF; Sanjuán, R (2008). "Natural Selection Fails to Optimize Mutation Rates for Long-Term Adaptation on Rugged Fitness Landscapes". PLOS Computational Biology. 4 (9): e1000187. Bibcode:2008PLSCB...4E0187C. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000187 . PMC   2527516 . PMID   18818724.
12. Ofria, Charles; Huang, Wei; Torng, Eric (2007). "On the Gradual Evolution of Complexity and the Sudden Emergence of Complex Features". Artificial Life. 14 (3): 255–263. doi:10.1162/artl.2008.14.3.14302. PMID   18489251. S2CID   2010637.
13. Elena, Santiago F.; Wilke, Claus O.; Ofria, Charles; Lenski, Richard E. (2007). "Effects of population size and mutation rate on the evolution of mutational robustness". Evolution. 61 (3): 666–674. doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2007.00064.x . PMID   17348929. S2CID   14353070.
14. Ostrowski, Elizabeth A.; Ofria, Charles; Lenski, Richard E. (2007). "Ecological Specialization and Adaptive Decay in Digital Organisms". The American Naturalist. 169 (1): E1–20. Bibcode:2007ANat..169E...1O. doi:10.1086/510211. JSTOR   10.1086/510211. PMID   17206577. S2CID   15024491.
15. Lenski, RE; Barrick, JE; Ofria, C (2006). "Balancing Robustness and Evolvability". PLOS Biology. 4 (12): e428. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0040428 . PMC   1750925 . PMID   17238277.
16. Misevic, Dusan; Ofria, Charles; Lenski, Richard E. (2005). "Sexual reproduction reshapes the genetic architecture of digital organisms". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 273 (1585): 457–464. doi:10.1098/rspb.2005.3338. PMC   1560214 . PMID   16615213.

External links

• Avida Software
• Avida-ED Project, led by Robert T. Pennock
• An Avida Developer's Site
• The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Adaptive Features Archived 2009-03-02 at the Wayback Machine 2003 Nature Paper
• 2010 Podcast with Carl Zimmer in Microbe WORLD
• Ofria's Publications on Google Scholar Citations