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Dr. Marina Papadopoulou

Computational Biologist | Postdoctoral Researcher

Quantitative understanding of collective behaviour & self-organization in social systems

Profiles & Contact

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Research Overview

I am a theoretical biologist with an expertise in self-organized social systems. My research focuses mainly on the collective behaviour of animals, such as fish schools, bird flocks and baboon troops, aiming to understand how complex spatiotemporal patterns emerge in nature. To identify their underlying mechanisms, I combine the analysis of empirical data and the development of agent-based models based on self-organization. I am particularly interested on the effects of individual variation in collective behaviour, as well as across species comparisons. As side projects, I also work on the science of science and meta-research.

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Keywords: collective behavior; self-organization; computational models; biohybrid systems, collective escape; collective intelligence; collective decision-making; bird flocks; fish schools; baboon troops; sociality; complexity science.

 Themes

Cover of the PhD Thesis of Marina Papadopoulou, bird flocks on a blue sky with clouds
Little Fish Shoal
Programming Console

Spatiotemporal dynamics of animals on the move

Behavioural individuality

Methods & Applications

My research combines the analysis of empirical data, bio-mimetic robots, and computer simulations, to identify the links between individual 'rules' of motion and social interactions ('involved cognition') and emergent collective patterns of animal groups, during collective motion, decision-making, and escape. 

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I am particularly interested on the  effect that group composition has on the emergent properties of a group, both in terms of across-individual differences in behaviour, as well as in the underlying social network. 

I develop quantitative tools and software for the analysis of collective motion and pattern-oriented agent-based modelling. I am further passionate about the application of our theoretical understanding of the dynamics of collective beahviour to swarm robotics and animal conservation. 

For details about my current projects see my Research page.

Publications & Manuscripts

Revealing mechanisms underlying the collective escape of starling flocks

Papadopoulou M., Hildenbrandt H., Storms R.F., Carere C., Hemelrijk C.K. (2024) 

Under review. bioRxiv doi: 10.1101/2024.10.27.620514

Biohybrid systems in animal behaviour

Papadopoulou M., Ball M., Bartashevich P., Burns A.L.J., Chiara V., Clark M.A., Costelloe B.R., Fele M., French F., Hauert S., Heinrich M.K., Herbert-Read J.E., Hoitt J., Ioannou C.C., Landgraf T., Matchette S.R., Polverino G., Sankey D., Scott M.D., Sridhar V. H., Strömbom D., Trianni V., Vo-Doan T.T., King A. J. (2024)

Under review

Coming soon

swaRmverse: an R package for the comparative analysis of collective motion

Papadopoulou M., Garnier S., King A. J. (2024)

Methods in Ecology and Evolution. doi: 10.1111/2041-210X.14460

Baboon travel progressions as a ‘social spandrel’ in collective animal behaviour

Fele M., Fürtbauer I., Lurgi M., Papadopoulou M., Bracken A. M., Christensen C., O’Riain M. J., King A. J. (2024)

Under review

Coming soon

DaNCES: a framework for data-inspired agent-based models of collective escape

Papadopoulou M., Hildenbrandt H., Hemelrijk C.K. (2024)

In: Brock, O., Krichmar, J. (eds) From Animals to Animats 17. SAB 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14993, pp 194–207. Springer, Cham. doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-71533-4_15

Linking energy availability, movement, and sociality in a wild primate (Papio ursinus)

Fürtbauer I., Shergold C., Christensen C., Bracken A.M., Heistermann M., Papadopoulou M., O’Riain J., King A.J. (2024)

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 379:20220466. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0466

Diffusion during collective turns in bird flocks under predation

Papadopoulou M., Hildenbrandt H., Hemelrijk C.K. (2023)

Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, 11: 1198248. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2023.1198248

Dynamics of collective motion across time and species

Papadopoulou M., Fürtbauer I., O’Bryan L., Garnier S., Georgopoulou D., Bracken A., Christensen C., King A.J. (2023)

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 378:20220068. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2022.0068

Biologically inspired herding of animal groups by robots.

King A.J., Portugal S.J., Strombom D., Mann R.P., Carrillo J.A., Kalise D., de Croon G., Barnett H., Scerri P., Gross R., Chadwick D.R., Papadopoulou M. (2023)

Methods in Ecology and Evolution. doi: 10.1111/2041-210X.14049

Emergence of splits and collective turns in pigeon flocks under predation.

Papadopoulou M., Hildenbrandt H., Sankey D.W.E., Portugal S.J., Hemelrijk C.K. (2022)

Royal Society Open Science, 9:211898. doi: 10.1098/rsos.211898

Self-organization of collective escape in pigeon flocks.

Papadopoulou M., Hildenbrandt H., Sankey D.W.E., Portugal S.J., Hemelrijk C.K. (2022)

PLoS Computational Biology, 18(1): e1009772. doi: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009772

Relationship between conservation biology and ecology shown through machine reading of 32,000 articles.

Hintzen R., Papadopoulou M., Mounce R., Banks-Leite C., Holt R., Mills M., Knight A., Leroi A., Rosindell J. (2020)

Conservation Biology, 34 (3), 721-732. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13435

On Revolutions.

Leroi A., Lambert B., Mauch M., Papadopoulou M., Ananiadou S., Lindberg S., Lindenfors P. (2020)

Palgrave Communications, 6 (1), 1-11.  doi: 10.1057/s41599-019-0371-1  

Download accepted version here

About

Marina Papadopoulou, PhD

I am a postdoctoral researcher based in Florence (Italy), working in the PRIN project: 'FALCOROBOT: Collective and individual responses of avian flocks to robotic predators', at the University of Tuscia (UNITUS) with Dr Claudio Carere and the University of Pisa with Dr Dimitri Giunchi. From 2022-2024, I have been a member of the group of Dr Andrew King at Swansea University, and the 2023 Outgoing FSBI Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow at Humboldt University of Berlin, in the group of Prof Dr Jens Krause. In Swansea, I was leading the 2G-SWARM project on developing data-inspired models of collective behaviour with applications in swarm robotics. I completed my PhD at the group of Prof Dr Charlotte Hemelrijk on self-organization of social systems, studying the emergence of complex collective patterns in bird flocks under predation using computational models. I have a BSc in Biology from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and a MSc in Computational Methods in Ecology and Evolution from Imperial College London. My day to day work includes data analysis, algorithm development, and agent-based modelling (more details here). I have experience in teaching animal behavior, self-organization and agent-based modelling, supervising BSc, MSc and PhD students, and organizing conferences.

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I am also the creator of BiasWatchEvol (gender bias in publications of ecology and evolutionary biology, www.biaswatchevol.com), have been a member of the Equality Diversity & Inclusion Committee at Swansea University, an ally of the LGBTQ+ community, a founding member of SEMF (a society for multidisciplinary research), a co-producer of a documentary on sustainable agriculture (Bananageddon) and a fencing athlete and coach.

Picture of Marina Papadopoulou

Event organization

I have chaired the organization of international events for up to 700 participants, supervising organizing teams of up to 25 members.

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I have recently co-organized an ASAB Interdisciplinary workshop on 'Biohybrid systems in animal behavior' at Swansea University (September 2023). For more information see below:

Poster of ASAB Workshop on Biohybrid Systems in Animal Behaviour in Swansea organized by Marina Papadopoulou

Interested in organizing a conference together?
Get in touch!

Methods

I perform data analysis using mostly R and Python, and agent-based modelling using C++ (and NetLogo for student projects). I have experience in machine learning techniques, algorithm development, natural language processing, high-performance computing, metaprogramming, graphic libraries and R package development.

Seagulls

Teaching & Supervision

I have taught and organized bachelor and master courses on self-organization, animal behaviour and agent-based modelling, working with students of diverse educational backgrounds (e.g., biology, physics, computer science, artificial intelligence, engineering and phsycology). I have supervised many student projects on collective behavior at BSc, MSc and PhD level.​ I have also delivered programming workshops for girls and women through several non-profit organizations such as Django Girls. As part of the postgraduate development program of Swansea University, I provide workshops on Data Visualization for students and staff. I have given science communication talks to kids, teenagers and adults on animal collective behaviour and the use of models to understand complex phenomena.

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I am always happy to (co-) supervise students on various projects, especially on agent-based modeling.

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