We are a research lab situated in the Biology Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston, focused on understanding collective decision-making in animal groups.

Collective decision-making abounds everywhere in nature and includes dynamics within a cell, the output of a brain, consensus among birds in a flock, and democratic governments. The process by which individuals come together to reach a consensus can lead to positive outcomes (such as the wisdom of crowds) or negative ones (such as mob behavior). Therefore, knowing how groups can make better decisions — and when they fail — allows us to better understand biological systems across scales, learn how social groups evolved, and design more functional human organizations.

Our lab is highly interdisciplinary and combines ideas and techniques from physics, computer science, engineering, mathematics, and, of course, biology, to achieve new insights into collective systems. We develop theoretical models to drive the design of lab experiments and perform fieldwork to study animal groups in their natural context. We welcome diversity in our lab and strive to promote underrepresented groups in science.