Current research

My research interest is in the details of the process of speciation: how do new species develop, what drives or inhibits that, and what theoretical models of speciation best fit nature? I am developing computational simulations of eco-evolutionary processes, using Mac OS X, Objective-C, Cocoa, NetLogo, and R. With these simulations I hope to observe speciation as an ongoing process, in order to better understand its dynamics. I'm particularly interested in the early stages of speciation: gene flow, adaptive divergence, and the ecological speciation model.

For an example of my research, here's a talk I gave at Speciation 2010.

Here's a workshop I made on Programming in R.

Personal information

Ben Haller's publications

Ben Haller's CV

Ben Haller on Google Scholar Citations

Ben Haller on ResearchGate

Ben Haller on ResearcherID

I started out as a software engineer, and I worked at Apple, Berkeley Systems, Symantec, NeXT, and other companies for many years. In the end, however, I decided that I wanted to do something more meaningful with my life, so I went into science. I believe that humanity is rapidly heading for a bottleneck, due to our enormous impact on the planet. Only science will be able to see us through that crisis. It is essential to improve science education, to increase investment in research and development, and to base public policy on hard scientific facts, not on fantasy. My hope is that my research will lead to policy recommendations regarding the preservation of biodiversity in the face of global climate change and other anthropogenic impacts.

Links to my other stuff

my photography: Cloud Photographic

my software: Stick Software

benaustria: My Europe travel blog (2010-11)

benamazon: My Amazon travel blog (2008)

eco-evo evo-eco: a blog about ecology and evolution (about this blog)

Other useful links