Since receiving his doctorate in theoretical physics from the State University at Stony Brook, NY in 1988 (for which he explored the consequences of dynamically coupling cellular automata to their underlying lattice, among other complexity-related topics), Dr. Ilachinski has been a research analyst and project director at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) in Alexandria, VA. There, he has focused mostly on mathematical and computer simulation studies. His projects have ranged from applying simulated annealing to surface surveillance problems, to radar modeling, to applying neural nets to electronic intelligence management and ambiguity resolution problems. 

Dr. Ilachinski was CNA's field representative to the Tactical Electronic Warfare Wing at Whidbey Island, Washington, where he provided technical support for the Navy's EA-6B electronic jammer aircraft. He has observed and reconstructed Navy exercises and has co-authored the Electronic Warfare volume of CNA's Operation Desert Storm reconstruction report. 

Most recently, in studies sponsored by the US Marine Corps and the Office of Naval Research, Dr. Ilachinski has been exploring the applicability of complex adaptive systems theory and nonlinear dynamics to the understanding of land warfare. As part of that research he is currently developing a sophisticated PC-based, multiagent-based "artificial-life" modeling toolkit (called EINSTein) to help explore self-organized emergent behavior in combat. He has lectured extensively during the past five years to widely diverse civilian (including a very receptive audience at the Smithsonian) and military audiences about how complexity might fundamentally alter the way in which we understand warfare. 

Dr. Ilachinski has written two graduate-level mathematical physics texts: (1) Cellular Automata: A Discrete Universe, and (2) Artificial War: Multiagent-Based Simulation of Combat. Both are published by World Scientific.

When not making his bad eyes even worse by sitting in front of a computer and playing with his artificial life forms, Andy is almost always enjoying his family and prowling around the neighborhood with his Nikon Coolpix 950, Olympus E10, Canon D60, 20D & 1D Mark II and assortment of batteries, tripods, lenses, filters and compact flash cards. Though Andy never foresaw the day his beloved film-based Canon A2E would spend more time in the camera bag than out, the appearance of the remarkably capable D60, 20D and 1D Mark II digital cameras has rendered all such musings moot once and for all!