Greg Stephens

Greg Stephens is an Associate Professor in the Physics of Living Systems department at the Faculty of Science, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. He also holds a position at the LaserLaB - Molecular Biophysics and is affiliated with the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology since 2012. His research pioneers the physics of behavior, focusing on understanding emergent dynamics in organisms like C. elegans, zebrafish, and honeybee collectives. Combining statistical physics, information theory, and dynamical systems, his group develops quantitative experiments to study behavior at both individual and collective scales.

His work emphasizes interdisciplinary collaboration, addressing questions like how organisms optimize behavior through evolutionary goals such as foraging and reproduction. Key contributions include behavioral analysis tools like WormPose and DISK, and studies on social dynamics in zebrafish and honeybees. Stephens has supervised three PhD theses and contributed to datasets on C. elegans behavior and organoid tracking. His research bridges theoretical frameworks with empirical observations, advancing our understanding of biological systems' behavior across scales.