Board of Directors

Jasper Taylor

I come from a hard-science background with wide experience of hi-tech industry.  I received a doctorate in Cognitive Science from Sussex University and went on to Edinburgh Uni to apply simulation modelling techniques to interactions between goal-driven agents. I thus brought a wide range of programming experience when I moved to the Institute of Ecology to bring life to a modelling tool designed to cope with the complexities of agroforestry and intercropping cultivation systems.  

After extending the capabilities of the modelling tool, now Simile, to meet the needs of a number of further academic projects, I became a co-founder of Simulistics, a company set up to commercialize Simile and expand it to support work in an ever-widening gamut of problem domains. The tool already has applications running from oceanography to healthcare, and my personal nirvana would be achieved if it ended up replacing text-based programming languages and spreadsheets altogether. I also designed and built my own Theremin.
 

Jonathan Massheder

Jonathan developed an interest in computer simulation whilst studying for his degree in Ecological Science. He has performed research on eco-physiology, modelling and measuring forest carbon and energy fluxes. The latter work formed the basis of his PhD.

Simulistics allows him to use his software development skills and scientific background to best effect in developing modelling tools, that he wishes he had had earlier in his career. He can also pursue his interest in ecological research.

Robert Muetzelfeldt

After getting a degree in Zoology, Robert studied vole feeding behaviour for his PhD — really just an excuse to play with computers and make bits of equipment in the departmental workshop. He then joined the University of Edinburgh as a lecturer in ecological modelling, developing an interest (some would say obsession) with the methodology of modelling in ecosystem research: how we make models, as distinct from the scientific content of models. This led to some 20 years of collaboration with colleagues in Artificial Intelligence, and, in 1996, the opportunity to lead the development of a visual modelling environment (originally called AME, now Simile) suitable for implementing the large and complex models required for ecosystems research.

Robert left the University in 2002 in order to pursue his personal research interests in modelling, to promote the concept of declarative modelling in the ecosystem research community, and to explore the potential of XML and related technologies for modelling in the future.