SSIE - 483/583: Evolutionary Systems and Biologically Inspired Computing

Spring 2026

Instructor: Luis M. Rocha, George J. Klir Professor of Systems Science. School of Systems Science and Industrial Engineering, Thomas J. Watson College of Engineering & Applied Science, Binghamton University (SUNY). Principal investigator of the Complex Adaptive Systems and Computational Intelligence (CASCI) lab and director of the Center for Social and Biomedical Complexity.

Teaching Assistant: TBA

Class Location and Time: Mondays, 6:00-9:00PM, Engineering Building, Room J01.

Course Description

Description: Biological organisms cope with the demands of their environments using solutions quite unlike the traditional human-engineered approaches to problem solving. Biological systems tend to be adaptive, reactive, and distributed. Bio-inspired computing is a field devoted to tackling complex problems using computational methods modeled after design principles encountered in nature. This course is strongly grounded on the foundations of complex systems and theoretical biology. It aims to provide an understanding of the distributed architectures of natural complex systems, and how those are used to produce computational tools with enhanced robustness, scalability, flexibility and which can interface more effectively with humans. It is a multi-disciplinary field strongly based on biology, complexity, computer science, informatics, cognitive science, robotics, and cybernetics.

Aims: Students are introduced to fundamental topics in evolutionary systems and bio-inspired computing, and build up their proficiency in the application of various algorithms in real-world problems.

Syllabus

Lecture Outline

What is Life?

What is so cool about life?
Life and Information
The Logical Mechanisms of Life

Imitation of Life

Computational Beauty of Nature
Self-similarity: fractals, L-systems, chaos

Life as (Self-)Organization

Artificial Life, Complex Systems and Complex Networks
Self-Organization and Emergent Complex Behavior
Automata Networks
Development and Morphogenesis

What is Computation?

What is so cool about computation?
Universal Computation and Life

Life as Evolution of Turing Machines

Von Neumann, Self-Replication and Open-ended evolution
Evolution and Adaptation
Biology through the lens of computer science
Genetic and Evolutionary Algorithms
Genetic Programming
Evolutionary Robotics and Synthetic Biology

Learning

Neurocomputing
Learning and evolution

Collective Behavior and Swarm Intelligence

Social Insects, Stigmergy and Swarm Intelligence
Communication and Multi-Agent simulation
Collective Computation and the Extended Mind

Immunocomputing

A distributed design for computational intelligence
Multi-level complexity
Engineering Applications

Discussion Topics

Evolutionary robots and embodied cognition
Viral evolution and epidemics
Bio-inspired Hardware
Bio-inspired design and problem-solving
Inferring Bio-Networks
Whole organism modeling
Biomolecular Self-Assembly
DNA Computation
Quantum Computation
Synthetic Biology

Course Evaluation

Participation: 20%.

Based upon attendance and participation.

Paper Presentation: 40%

Students will present and discuss five papers in class (ISE483 students present and discuss only three papers). Presentation of research paper plus leading of discussion. Students are assigned to papers as lead discussants, but all students are supposed to read and participate in discussion of every paper. During class, a lead discussant prepares a short summary of the paper (15 minutes). The summary should: 1) Identify the key goals of the paper (not go in detail over every section); 2) What discussant liked and did not like; 3) What authors achieved and did not; 4) Any other relevant connections to other class readings and beyond. After summary, discussion is opened to all, and role of lead discussant is to lead the discussion to make sure we address the important paper contributions. Also, discussant should prepare 2-3 discussion questions.

Project or Paper: 40%

Students are expected to continuously consult with the instructor regarding the scope and depth of the project paper.

Office Hours

Luis Rocha: Thursdays 9 - 11:30am, Engineering Building C3 (Complex Adaptive Systems and Computational Intelligence Lab) or Online, or by appointment

TA: TBA.

Labs

Demo Labs	Not an Assignment
Lab 0	Python review (No Assignment)
Lab 1	Measuring (uncertainty-based) information
Lab 2	L-systems
Lab 3	Cellular Automata & Boolean Networks
Lab 4	Evolutionary Algorithms
Lab 5	Ant Clustering Algorithm

Course Materials and Readings

Lecture Notes

Lecture Slides

Lecture	File & Description
Lecture 1	Introductions and What is Life?
Lecture 2	Life and Information

Student Presentation and Discussion Papers

James, R., and Crutchfield, J. (2017). Multivariate Dependence beyond Shannon Information. Entropy, 19(10), 531.

Langton, C. [1989]. "Artificial Life". In Artificial Life. C. Langton (Ed.). Addison-Wesley. pp. 1-47.

Pattee, H. [1989], "Simulations, Realizations, and Theories of Life". In Artificial Life. C. Langton (Ed.). Addison-Wesley. pp. 63-77.

Searls, David B. [2010]. "The Roots of Bioinformatics". PLoS Computational Biology 6(6): e1000809.

More to be added as class progresses

Additional Class Readings

Optional: Aleksander, I. [2002]. "Understanding Information Bit by Bit". In: It must be beautiful : great equations of modern science. G. Farmelo (Ed.), Grant.

Optional: Cobb, Matthew. [2013]. "1953: When Genes Became 'Information'." Cell 153 (3): 503-506.

Dennet, D.C. [2005]. "Show me the Science". New York Times, August 28, 2005

Optional: Golan, Amos, and John Harte [2022]. "Information theory: A foundation for complexity science". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 119(33): e2119089119

Optional: Nunes de Castro, Leandro [2006]. Fundamentals of Natural Computing: Basic Concepts, Algorithms, and Applications. Chapman & Hall. Chapter 1, pp. 1-23.

Optional: Prokopenko, Mikhail, Fabio Boschetti, and Alex J. Ryan. "An information theoretic primer on complexity, self organization, and emergence." Complexity 15.1 (2009): 11-28.

Polt, R. [2012]. "Anything but Human". New York Times, August 5, 2012

Optional: Wigner, E.P. [1960], "The unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in the natural sciences". Richard courant lecture in mathematical sciences delivered at New York University, May 11, 1959. Comm. Pure Appl. Math., 13: 1-14.

More to be added as class progresses

Class Book

Floreano, D. and C. Mattiussi [2008]. Bio-Inspired Artificial Intelligence: Theories, Methods, and Technologies. MIT Press. May be available in electronic format for SUNY students.

Recommended and Alternative Books

Flake, G. W. [1998]. The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Complex Systems, and Adaptation. MIT Press. Via BU/SUNY library.

Gleick, J. [2011]. The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood. Random House. Via BU/SUNY library.

De Jong, K. [2016] Evolutionary Computation: A Unified Approach. MIT Press.

Mitchell, M. [2019]. Artificial intelligence : a guide for thinking humans. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Via BU/SUNY library

Mitchell, M. [2009]. Complexity: A Guided Tour. Oxford University Press. Available online via BU/SUNY library.

Mitchell, M. [1999]. An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms. MIT Press. Via BU/SUNY library

Nunes de Castro, Leandro [2006]. Fundamentals of Natural Computing: Basic Concepts, Algorithms, and Applications. Chapman & Hall. Via BU/SUNY Library. On Google Books.

Nunes de Castro, Leandro and Fernando J. Von Zuben [2005]. Recent Developments in Biologically Inspired Computing. MIT Press. Available online via BU/SUNY library.

Prusinkiewicz and Lindenmeyer [1996] The algorithmic beauty of plants.

Last Modified: February 1, 2026

SSIE - 483/583: Evolutionary Systems and Biologically Inspired Computing

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Lecture Outline