John Henry Holland is an American scientist and Professor of Psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 and Professor of Electrical Engineering

Electrical engineering

Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...

 and Computer Science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

 at the University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

, Ann Arbor. He is a pioneer in complex systems

Complex systems

Complex systems present problems in mathematical modelling.The equations from which complex system models are developed generally derive from statistical physics, information theory and non-linear dynamics, and represent organized but unpredictable behaviors of systems of nature that are considered...

 and nonlinear science. He is known as the father of genetic algorithm

Genetic algorithm

A genetic algorithm is a search heuristic that mimics the process of natural evolution. This heuristic is routinely used to generate useful solutions to optimization and search problems...

s. He was awarded in 1961 the Louis E. Levy Medal from The Franklin Institute.

Biography

Holland was born in Fort Wayne in Indiana in 1929. He studied Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received a B.S. in 1950, and studied Mathematics at the University of Michigan and received an M.A. in 1954. In 1959 he was the recipient of the first computer science Ph.D. from the University of Michigan. He is now Professor of Psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

 and Professor of Electrical Engineering

Electrical engineering

Electrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...

 and Computer Science

Computer science

Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

 at the University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

, Ann Arbor.

He is also a member of The Center for the Study of Complex Systems (CSCS) at the University of Michigan, and a member of the Board of Trustees and Science Board of the Santa Fe Institute

Santa Fe Institute

The Santa Fe Institute is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, including physical, computational, biological, and social systems.The Institute houses a...

.

John H Holland is the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and a fellow of the World Economic Forum

World Economic Forum

The World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland....

.

Work

Holland frequently lectures around the world on his own research, and on current research and open questions in complex adaptive systems (CAS) studies. In 1975 he wrote the ground-breaking book on genetic algorithms, "Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems". He also developed Holland's schema theorem

Holland's Schema Theorem

Holland's schema theorem is widely taken to be the foundation for explanations of the power of genetic algorithms. It was proposed by John Holland in the 1970s....

.

Publications

Holland is the author of a number of books about CAS, including:

• 1975, Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems
• 1995, Hidden Order: How Adaptation Builds Complexity
• 1998, Emergence: From Chaos to Order

Articles, a selection:

• 1959, "A universal computer capable of executing an arbitrary number of subprograms simultaneously", in: Proc. Eastern Joint Comp. Conf. pp. 108–112.
• 1960, "Iterative circuit computers", in: Proc. Western Joint Comp. Conf. pp. 259–265.
• 1962, "Outline for a logical theory of adaptive systems", in: JACM, Vol 9, nr. 3, pp. 279–314.
• 1970, "Hierarchical descriptions, universal spaces, and adaptive systems", in: Arthur W. Burks, editor. Essays on Cellular Automata. University of Illinois Press. 1970
• 1989, "Using Classifier Systems to Study Adaptive Nonlinear Networks", in: Daniel L. Stein, editor. Lectures in the Sciences of Complexity. Addison Wesley. 1989
• 1990, "Concerning the Emergence of Tag-Mediated Lookahead in Classifier Systems", in: Stephanie Forrest, editor. Emergent Computation: self-organizing, collective, and cooperative phenomena in natural and computing networks. MIT Press. 1991
• 1992, "The Royal Road for Genetic Algorithms: Fitness Landscapes and GA Performance", in: Francisco J. Varela, Paul Bourgine, editors. Toward a Practice of Autonomous Systems: proceedings of the first European conference on Artificial Life. MIT Press. 1992
• 1994, "Echoing Emergence: objectives, rough definitions, and speculations for ECHO-class models", in: George A. Cowan, David Pines, David Meltzer, editors. Complexity: metaphors, models, and reality, Addison-Wesley. 1994
• 1995, "Can There Be A Unified Theory of Complex Adaptive Systems?", in: Harold J. Morowitz, Jerome L. Singer, editors. The Mind, The Brain, and Complex Adaptive Systems. Addison-Wesley. 1995
• 2000, "Board Games", in: John Brockman, editor. The Greatest Inventions of the Past 2000 Years. Phoenix. 2000.
• 2002, "What is to Come and How to Predict It.", in: John Brockman, editor. The Next Fifty Years: science in the first half of the twenty-first century. Weidenfeld & Nicholson. 2002

External links

• Faculty Profile at University of Michigan web-site.
• Biography
• Bibliography of John Henry Holland by Susan Stepney.
• Echo project of John Holland at the Santa Fe Institute.