Nihat Ay

Nihat Ay is an External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) and holds a part-time resident Professor position there since 2014. He serves as a Research Group Leader at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in Leipzig and is affiliated with the University of Leipzig as an Honorary Professor. His academic journey began with studies in mathematics and physics at Ruhr University Bochum, followed by a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Leipzig (2001). After postdoctoral fellowships at SFI and the Redwood Neuroscience Institute (UC Berkeley), he joined Friedrich Alexander University in Erlangen as faculty, earning his habilitation in mathematics before moving to the Max Planck Institute.

• Home Institution: Hamburg University of Technology
• Research Group: Information Theory of Cognitive Systems
• Part-time faculty: Santa Fe Institute

His research spans Artificial Intelligence, Cognitive Systems, and Information Theory, focusing on the foundations of intelligence and embodied cognition. Collaborative work connects mathematics, neuroscience, and theoretical biology, blending interdisciplinary approaches to understand complex systems.