We are delighted to welcome Jeremy Gunawardena as a Senior Fellow of the Barcelona Collaboratorium.

Trained as a mathematician and now a leading voice in systems biology, Jeremy is currently a Distinguished Professor at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) in Barcelona, where his lab studies cellular information processing and develops new ideas around “cellular learning.”

His career spans several worlds: from pure mathematics to computer science, followed by an extended period of industrial research at HP Labs, and then Harvard (the Bauer Center for Genomics Research, followed by the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School). Along the way, he has helped sustain a “chalk-and-talk” theory culture—one that clarifies concepts before models become more complex.

At the Collaboratorium, Jeremy will bring this theory-first energy to our scientific discussions and activities, strengthening bridges between mathematics, modelling, AI, and biology—with one guiding question in mind: how far can we formalize and test the idea that cells can learn?