Profile of Jacob Foster

I am a Professor of Informatics and Cognitive Science at Indiana University Bloomington and an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. I try to understand the principles behind natural and artificial intelligences (individual and collective). I am also working to reimagine social science as a science of the possible. I was trained as a physicist, starting with a BS from Duke University (2003). After studying mathematical physics at Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship (2003-2006), I received my PhD in statistical physics and complex systems from the University of Calgary (2010), where I was supported by a scholarship from the Informatics Circle of Research Excellence (iCORE). I then trained as a social scientist at the University of Chicago, where I was a postdoctoral scholar and research assistant professor (2010-2013). Before coming to Indiana University, I spent a decade on the faculty at UCLA (2013-2023), where I most recently was Professor of Sociology. I was an Infosys Member at the Institute for Advanced Study in 2020-2021. I am also the founding Co-Director of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute, a program that aims to build community, collaboration, and creative thinking among early career scholars interested in the study of mind, cognition, and intelligence of diverse forms and formats—from ants and apes to humans and AI.