Connor McShaffrey
CogSci / Bioengineering PhD Candidate, NSF Graduate Research Fellow (he/him)
sites.google.com/view/connor-mcshaff…
Indiana University, Vassar '21 🎓
Modeling life and its limits with dynamical systems 🦠 microscopy for fun 🔬
- Reposted by Connor McShaffreyThis deal is incredible & it's for the best cause! You can get ALL the fiction by me and @charliejane.bsky.social from @humblebundle.com for a low, low price -- and all sales benefit the Miss Major Alexander L. Lee Black Trans Justice Center. www.humblebundle.com/books/charli...
- Reposted by Connor McShaffreyEpstein-Barr Virus #EBV was linked to #MultipleSclerosis - now a plausible cause has been found, misidentification by longterm memory T-cells that pick on the wrong protein, ANO2, instead of the EBV-antigen. Massive inflection towards the elimination of MS!!! 🧪🧠Cell www.cell.com/cell/fulltex...
- Reposted by Connor McShaffreyNeed an antidote to the horror and paralysis? See you tomorrow at 11 pacific time. citylights.com/events/panel...
- The last piece of microscope art I did in 2025 :) reflected light off a surface of a bubble and magnified by 100x, manipulated to give a planet-like effect Wishing all a great start to 2026!
- Where does the life-death boundary come from, and how will a cell's dynamics unfold relative to it? Myself, Eran Agmon, and Randy Beer argue for a theory of cellular viability, with new global organizing principles for cell fate. Preprint: arxiv.org/pdf/2511.07847
- Reposted by Connor McShaffreyHow “intelligent” is a slime mold? When it solves mazes, it might not be thinking:it’s obeying physics. Our new paper with @jordiplam.bsky.social shows how it follows a least action principle,letting physics do the job arxiv.org/pdf/2511.08531 @drmichaellevin.bsky.social @docteur-drey.bsky.social
- This is some really interesting work at the intersection of animal behavior, agent-environment modeling, and dynamical systems analysis. Definitely worth checking out! (Also, Eden is a pretty groovy guy; you should consider following him.)
- Happy to say one of my dissertation projects was accepted for publication in Movement Ecology! We evolved small neural controllers to show how forager perception (visual v. tactile) and target signals generate different movement patterns during pursuit. Pre-print: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
- Reposted by Connor McShaffreyDo you review papers? Check out Earl's @earlkmiller.bsky.social recommendations. The one that i would emphasize the most: jocnf.pubpub.org/pub/qag76ip8...
- Reposted by Connor McShaffrey#ALIFE2025 #TONAL2025 satellite
- It was an honor to be invited to speak at the TONAL workshop on the role of noise in Artificial Life! www.oist.jp/research/res... Looking forward to speaking about our recent work again later on at #ALife2025! Paper to be posted soon 🙂
- Reposted by Connor McShaffreyAnyway, here is some actually incredible news www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
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- I am super excited to read this paper! Viability, semantic information, and more :) journals.aps.org/prxlife/abst...
- Hello friends of bluesky! I am finishing my PhD this academic year, and am looking for postdocs and faculty applications in the realm of nonlinear dynamics, biology, complex systems, and CogSci. Any recommendations for places I should be looking at?
- Anyone interested in autopoiesis and Randall Beer's formalization of it in Conway's Game of Life would probably enjoy looking at Tom's undergrad thesis, where he extends the ideas to the "Larger than Life" and "Real Life" family of cellular automata!
- This looks like a nice entry point for folks interested in the intersection of dynamical systems theory and cell biology!
- Introducing five concepts from dynamical systems to decode developmental regulatory mechanisms, have a read! @perez-carrasco.bsky.social @roederlab.bsky.social @mpipz.bsky.social This effort started in a morphogenesis meeting @kitp-ucsb.bsky.social in 2023. journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...
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- Reposted by Connor McShaffreyForgotten studies from the early 20th century are helping scientists probe how and whether individual cells can learn and remember.
- Very excited to see the final version of this paper out!
- I have been following this work and it is really neat stuff! Excited to see this one
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- Reposted by Connor McShaffrey#Neuroskyence students! We're brainstorming ways to support your development over this summer break, esp. given the changes in summer intern programs across our fields. What other opportunities would you like to see? Some ideas: undergrad-focused webinars, self-paced courses, challenges, etc.
- Thomas does some really cool work. I highly recommend taking a look!
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- Reposted by Connor McShaffrey‼️FYI. The deadline for paper contributions is May 4th 2025*. Our submission platform will open shortly. Note: This year looks a bit different to previous years. We'll be inviting 3 types of contributions: Full papers (3-8 pages) Summaries (2 pages) ✨️new!✨️ Late Breaking Abstracts (2 pages)* 👇
- This book has had a profound influence on me. I am so excited to see it in print!
- "Can a book be ahead of its time by 50 years?! The answer is a definitive ‘yes’ in the case of this phenomenal book by Francisco Varela. A real gem of a book about the philosophical foundations of biology and so much more." - Luiz Pessoa @pessoabrain.bsky.social mitpress.mit.edu/978026255140...
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- Reposted by Connor McShaffreySomewhat old news here, but since I'm switching over from the other site: Happy to announce that my Computational Neuroscience textbook was published by MIT Press. The text and code is freely accessible: mitpress.mit.edu/978026254808... (click Open Access) drive.google.com/drive/folder... (1/n)
- A shot I got manipulating the light passing through a soil sample at 250x magnification 🙂
- Reposted by Connor McShaffreyIs cognition a universal feature of the living world? How can we define it? Is a nervous system needed? If so, why? If not, why not? Check this fascinating @royalsocietypublishing.org Theme Issue led by @drmichaellevin.bsky.social & co. on Basal Cognition royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1...
- Reposted by Connor McShaffreyOur fully 3D-printed microscope is featured in @newscientist.bsky.social www.newscientist.com/article/2462...
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- As I watched a small patch of snow melt on my microscope slide, I was able to manipulate the light to get some really beautiful structure. Editing the colors and overlaying some effects gave this picture, which I'm quite happy with 🙂
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- Some debris from plants and cells found in a water sample, made to look like they're in outer space
- Spider plant leaf, post processing to improve contrast 🙂
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- I read a preprint of this paper and am excited to see that it has been published! I recommend taking a look if you are interested in theories of cellular viability 🙂 journals.aps.org/prresearch/a...
- Reposted by Connor McShaffreyI don't know who needs to know this, but Pro Publica has an online thing that will format a letter to your US health insurance company to demand the records behind a claim denial. (which the insurance is then legally required to provide in most cases) projects.propublica.org/claimfile/
- This paper looks like it is going to be a lot of fun to read 🙂
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- Rearranged the house, so it only feels right to pick a new selection of books to go behind the desk 🙂
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- Reposted by Connor McShaffreyI'll be posting some quotes from my book in this thread. The book is overpriced due to a knee-jerk reaction to the pandemic in 2022. But you can get 30% off using code P325 at press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...
