Dr Matthew Egbert

Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, University of Auckland
Director of Te Ao Mārama: Centre for Fundamental Inquiry, Faculty of Science, University of Auckland
Principal Investigator, Centre for Computational Evolution, University of Auckland
Associate Editor of Adaptive Behavior
Associate Editor of Cognitive Systems Research

Matthew Egbert studies how living and thinking systems come to exist and sustain themselves. His work focuses on autonomy—the capacity of a system to actively maintain its own organization while engaging with its environment, rather than being controlled from the outside.

Using ideas and tools from artificial life, dynamical systems theory, and embodied robotics, Egbert investigates how such self-maintaining processes emerge, adapt, and persist over time. His research draws on enactive and systems-theoretic perspectives to connect philosophy, biology, and computational modeling, with the goal of clarifying what it means for both living and artificial systems to be viable, self-directed agents.

email: m.egbert@auckland.ac.nz