| Christoph Adami | |
| Birth Place: | Brussels, Belgium |
| Nationality: | German |
| Fields: | Evolutionary Biology and Physics |
| Workplaces: | Stony Brook University California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory Keck Graduate Institute Michigan State University |
| Alma Mater: | University of Bonn Stony Brook University |
| Academic Advisors: | Gerald E. Brown |
| Doctoral Students: | Charles Ofria |
| Known For: | Negative quantum entropy Digital evolution Avida |
| Awards: | Fairchild Prize Fellowship (1992) CaltechPresident's Fund Award (1996) NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal (2002) Fellow of the AAAS (2012) Fellow of the American Physical Society (2017) |
Christoph Carl Herbert "Chris" Adami (born August 30, 1962) is a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, as well as professor of physics and astronomy, at Michigan State University.
Adami was born in Brussels, Belgium, and graduated from the European School of Brussels I. He obtained a Diplom in physics from the University of Bonn and an MA and a Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics from Stony Brook University in 1991.[1] Adami was a Division Prize Fellow in the lab of Steven E. Koonin at the California Institute of Technology from 1992-1995, and was subsequently on the Caltech faculty as a senior research associate.
Before joining Michigan State University, he was a professor of Applied Life Sciences at the Keck Graduate Institute in Claremont, California. Adami is best known for his work on Avida, an artificial life simulator used to study evolutionary biology,[2] and for applying the theory of information to physical and biological systems. Together with Nicolas J. Cerf, Adami made significant advances in the quantum theory of information in the late 1990s.
He received the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal while serving at JPL, and was elected a Fellow of the AAAS in 2012.[3] He was also elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society[4] in 2017. On July 31, 2019, He was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by The International Society for Artificial Life.[5]