Flatiron Research Fellow - Biological Transport & Networks, Center Computational Biology

The Center for Computational Biology (CCB), an in-house research center of the Simons Foundatio
n ’s Flatiron Institute , is actively seeking enthusiastic, full-time post-doctoral Flatiron Research Fellows to join its Biological Transport & Networks Group . The start date is flexible, with the Fellow expected to begin no later than September 2027. Applications will be reviewed beginning in Fall 2026 and considered on a rolling basis until the positions are filled.

CCB has a twofold mission: to develop the rigorous modeling tools and theory needed for understanding biological processes, and to create computational frameworks that will facilitate the analysis of the large, complex data sets being generated by quantitative experimental technologies. To accomplish this, CCB brings together experts in various biological domains (including genomics, molecular, cellular, and developmental biology) whose approaches are informed by the modern computational tools of applied mathematics, statistical inference, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML), biophysics, and computer science.

The goal: to enable CCB to undertake ambitious, long-term research projects that transcend conventional disciplinary boundaries and that lead to a quantitative and predictive understanding of biological phenomena; and to develop high-quality, well-tested, versatile and extensible software across its research areas.

CCB currently comprises more than 50 scientists at career stages from Ph.Ds through senior scientists, as well as visiting scientists and guest researchers, affiliated graduate students and interns. Together, the CCB scientific staff are pioneering an approach to biology in which theory,computation, and experimentation are integrated, from problem conceptualization onwards. This approach enables CCB to tackle not only recognized, fundamental problems in biology that have so far eluded solution, but also, because of the value placed on curiosity-driven research, to find and develop new areas of biological inquiry.

Led by Eleni Katifori, the Biological Transport Networks group uses theory and computation, in close collaboration with experimentalists, to understand how biological networks develop, remodel, and function. We investigate how local physical processes—including fluid flow, tissue deformation, and transport of nutrients and signaling molecules—give rise to network architecture and collective behavior. Our work connects physics, applied mathematics, and biology, seeking general principles that explain both the diversity of transport networks across organisms and the common constraints that shape their organization.

Current research spans vertebrate vascular development and remodeling, circulation driven by cilia and body contractions in jellyfish, the interplay between tissue mechanics and vascular transport, and transport-informed models of neuronal growth and maturation. Central questions include how adaptation produces hierarchical or looped architectures, how pulsatile flows influence network development and function, and how nonlinearities and vessel compliance affect transport. We combine analytical models, large-scale numerical simulations, artificial intelligence and machine learning methods, and quantitative analysis of experimental data to connect processes at the scale of individual vessels with the behavior of entire networks.

Alongside these biological questions, we investigate how adaptive physical networks can learn, store memory, and perform tasks through local interactions, with applications to fluidic and mechanical systems.

Flatiron Research Fellows in CCB are…