people

James Holehouse is a Mathematical Biologist and Complexity Scientist, and is the PI of the $R^3$ Lab at WashU. He received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh in 2022 in Mathematical Biology from the lab of Ramon Grima. His thesis received the Reinhart-Heinrich Thesis Award from ESMTB for 2022. Prior to joining WashU’s department of Biology, he spent his postdoc years (2022-2026) at the Santa Fe Institute, in New Mexico, working on questions relating to the “Rules of Life”. He is the curator of the Sports Rules Project. He believes that life is the origin of the universe’s complex rule systems.

James’ interests span the growth of rules and regulations in Biology and Society, and the role that randomness plays in their evolution. He typically employs methods from Non-equilibrium Statistical Physics, Systems Biology and Evolutionary Biology to research these topics. Some of James’ most recent projects involve:

• Categorizing the growth of rule systems in sport and US governance.
• Understanding the relationships between the organization of cells, federal agencies and cities.
• Exploring the role of transient behavioral modes in gene regulatory mechanisms.

For an overview of the philosophy behind some of James’ work, please see this video. You can access James’ full CV here. Please contact James at this email.

Leonardo I. Estrella Dzib is a computational and natural scientist soon to complete his undergraduate studies at Minerva University. Beginning in Fall 2026, he will join the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department at Washington University in St. Louis, where he will work in the $R^3$ Lab as a graduate student. He is inspired by the idea that interconnectedness and feedback drive stability and evolution, giving rise to the complexity of living systems.

Leonardo’s research focuses on the processes that generate and maintain biological diversity across scales, with a particular emphasis on network dynamics. He uses mathematical modeling and computational simulations to uncover general principles governing biological systems. His work includes:

• Evolution of gene regulatory networks under cell-to-cell variability.
• Modeling metabolically constrained adaptive networks to study food web stability.
• Coevolution of cooperation and cohesion using agent-based modeling.