معرفی
Stephanie Palmer is an Associate Professor at the University of Chicago, holding dual appointments in the Department of Physics and the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy. Her research integrates statistical physics, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology to investigate how biological systems process information and evolve complex traits. She is affiliated with the Enrico Fermi Institute, James Franck Institute, and Kadanoff Center, among others.
Her work spans topics such as predictive coding in neural networks, evolutionary mechanisms in butterfly vision, and the statistical mechanics of biological systems. Notably, she was awarded the Schmidt Science Polymath in 2025 for her interdisciplinary contributions. Recent studies focus on retinal processing of natural scenes, scale-free network dynamics, and the genetic basis of mate preference in Heliconius butterflies.
Palmer employs advanced techniques like synchrotron imaging and computational modeling, often bridging theory and experiment. Her research highlights how biological systems optimize information transmission under evolutionary and physiological constraints.
