Confirmed speakers
(listed in alphabetic order)
See what they will be presenting in the Detailed Conference Schedule.

Darrel Anderson, Organic Artist, USA. Darrel Anderson has been creating and inventing professionally for about 25 years. He is an award winning illustrator, designer, and programmer. He was a guest artist/instructor at the California State University Summer Arts Program, Tufts University, and Modesto Junior College. See Darrel's home page on Grobot his tool for kids to make their own explorations in evolutionary art.

Stefan Bengtson, Department of Palaeozoology, Swedish Museum of Natural History. Prominent researcher in paleobiology, editor of Early Life on Earth.

Desmond Collins, Chief Scientist for the Burgess Shale, Royal Ontario Museum, will present an illustrated overview of the Burgess Fauna and assist in the guided trip to the Shale.

Bruce Damer, Co-Director of the Contact Consortium, President, Digitalspace Corporation. Bruce is the conference chair for Digital Burgess and co-founded the Biota project which is the primary organizer of Digital Burgess. Bruce will talk about biological systems as an appropriate model for the next version of Cyberspace and the philosophical implications of a Cambrian Explosion in digital space: why would life want to exist in bits?

Rajarshi Das is a computer scientist and a postdoctoral researcher at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Santa Fe Institute, and IBM Watson Research Center. Rajarshi will present his work on the emergence of computation and representation in simple spatially-extended dynamical systems undergoing natural selection. More information about this work can be found at http://www.santafe.edu/~evca/.

Steve Grand, Director of Technology for Cyberlife Technology Ltd. and creator of the internationally acclaimed CD-ROM Creatures will talk about the meaning of (artificial) life - what it means to call computer programs alive, and what the philosophical and ethical implications are for them and for us. Find out about Creatures on the CyberLife Home Page.

Joel Hagen is an instructor of computer graphics at Modesto Junior College in California. He is an astronomical painter and author of a long running column on computer graphics for AmigaWorld magazine. Recently, Joel has been doing imaging for NASA Ames in support of the Mars Pathfinder mission. Much of Joel's personal work begins in the area where art and science overlap. His presentation will explore scientific and artistic perceptions of the limits of alien life, including his own museum of extra-terrestrial paleontology. See Joel's work at: http://www.ainet.com/hagen

Christian Jacob, computer scientist, University of Calgary. Dr. Jacob will demonstrate evolutionary algorithms, evolution of L-system encoded fractal and plant structures, as well as coevolution of plant behaviour in competitive environments. Read more about Dr. Jacob on his homepage.

Paul Marrow, Professional, Information Systems Centre, Applied Research & Technologies, BT Laboratories. Paul graduated in Pure and Applied Biology from Oxford University in 1989, and then received a DPhil in Biology from York University (UK) in 1992. Subsequently he held a Royal Society Research Fellowship at the Institute of Theoretical Biology, Leiden University, in the Netherlands, where he studied evolutionary dynamics. Following this he moved to Cambridge to study evolution in natural populations of mammals, before joining BT Laboratories in 1997. His current research interests are in the application of ecological and evolutionary ideas to the improvement of computer systems.

Roy Plotnick, University of Illinois at Chicago, Paleobiologist and computer modeler, will discuss the role of computer modeling in understanding the ecological and evolutionary history of life on earth. Read his paper on The Ecological Play and the Geological Theater which will give you some background for his presentation.

Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz, Computer Scientist, will discuss insights gained into structures in Nature through L-systems, realistic digital plant models. Read more about Dr. Prusinkiewicz on his Homepage and on biological modeling using L-systems.

Tom Ray, Biologist, rain forest conservationist, and Digital Evolutionist will present recent results from Network Tierra, a large scale on-line digital ecosystem. Find more about Tom Ray and Tierra on his Homepage at ATR.


Bill Riedel, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, University of California San Diego. Bill has extensively researched the evolution of radiolarians (a group of pelagic microfossils) and developed expert systems in geology and paleontology. Bill collaborates on the journal Palaeontologia Electronica and is chairing the Paleontological program at Digital Burgess.

Steven Rooke, former Geologist, Systems Programmer and now an Evolutionary Artist will address genetic breakthroughs in aesthetically guided evolution of complex imagery. Get a preview of some of his work by visiting Steven Rooke's homepage.

Bruce Runnegar, Paleobiologist, University of California Los Angeles, will talk about the Virtual life of the Cambrian Explosion. See Professor Runnegar's page and publications.

Karl Sims studied Life Sciences as an undergraduate at M.I.T. and later studied computer graphics at the M.I.T. Media Laboratory. After developing special effects software for Hollywood production firms, he collaborated with Thinking Machines Corporation for several years as an artist in residence and research scientist. He currently leads Genetic Arts, Inc. in Cambridge, Mass. which develops effects plug-ins and continues to explore new techniques for creating images with computers. His works of computer animation include Panspermia, Liquid Selves, Primordial Dance, and Particle Dreams. His interactive installation Genetic Images has exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and his installation Galapagos is currently on display at the ICC museum in Tokyo. See our page on Karl Sim's creatures for some examples of his work.

Demetri Terzopoulos, Professor of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto and graphics research group leader at Intel Corporation, will speak on artificial animals. Read more about Dr. Terzopoulos and his research on his homepage.

Christopher Simon Winter, Group Manager, Information Systems Centre, BT Laboratories. Chris graduated in Biochemistry from Oxford University in 1980, gained a doctorate in Solid State Physics from Lancaster University in 1982 and was then awarded a prestigious 1851 Research fellowship before joining the BT Laboratories at Martlesham Heath in 1985. In the 1980's he was responsible for teams developing some of the new optical materials and devices used to build the Information Superhighway. Since then he has lead teams developing new mobile services and developing intelligent AI-based software. He currently leads a research group exploring the applications of artificial life technique to evolving large software and systems, and to making computers more behaviour-based and intelligent.

Larry Yaeger, Computer Scientist, will discuss the behaviors and internals of the digital organisms in his PolyWorld computational ecology and how they might suggest an information-based quantitative assessment of life.

Other confirmed faculty, details forthcoming

Members and staff of The Burgess Shale Foundation (Burgess Shale Trek/opening only)
Mark Rudolph, Silicon Graphics, Inc. (Sponsor)
Teri Rueb, Artist, New York University

Regular attendees

Stuart Gold, Shadow and Light Productions, Berkeley, USA
Richard Harris, the Digital Village, UK
Jan Hauser, Sun Microsystems (Federal), USA (Sponsor)
Fred Horstmann
Sang Mah, Credo Interactive, Canada
David McFadzean
Jeff Rulifson, Sun Microsystems (Federal), USA (Sponsor)
Neil Trevett, 3D Labs, USA (Sponsor)
LEE Hoong-Chien
Tarik Thami, SFSU, CA USA
John Borthwick
Tim McCormick
Steven Forth
Takashi Miuria
Chris Carpenter
Marcia Avalon, San Francisco
William J. Meyer, New York
Roderick Dunnett
Roy Potterw

Attendees with Bios

Richard Gordon of Manitoba, Canada. Richard Gordon is a theoretical biologist who has found a set of waves on axolotl embryos that may trigger cell differentiation. The waves are organized in space and time in a differentiation tree that varies from one kind of organism to another, and may explain the Bauplans of the Burgess creatures. He will bring along his nearly completed book manuscript: The Hierarchical Genome and Ultraslow, Differentiation Waves: Novel Unification of Development, Genetics, and Evolution (Singapore: World Scientific) [now out: http://www.wspc.com.sg/books/lifesci/2755.html]. Dick also works on 4D detection of breast cancer in Radiology at the University of Manitoba.

Support staff

Stuart Gold, Bauer, Gold and Associates, UK
Todd Goldenbaum, USA
Wm Leler
Wendy Sue Noah, Fujitsu Software, USA
Tim Riley

Invited Press

CBC Radio and Television
Discovery Canada
Sue Wilcox