Elias Najarro

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I'm a postdoc at the Robotics, Evolution & Artificial Life Laboratory, IT University of Copenhagen; advised by Sebastian Risi.

I work on self-organisation and AI. I explore how ideas from collective intelligence and complex systems can inform machine learning models, and in turn, how these models can be used to understand the complex systems that inspired them. Specifically, I'm interested in self-organisation as an approach to designing open-ended systems, and in using machine learning to understand and control emergent systems. Recently, I have started applying these principles to the design of agentic LLM systems with a human-in-the-loop component.

Previously, I wrote my MSc thesis on computational neuroscience at BergLab, Dept. of Neuroscience, University of Copenhagen. I hold an BSc degree in Physics from Sorbonne University and a Master in Computational Physics from the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI), University of Copenhagen.

I'm interested in all things open science: open-source, open-data, open-access, and open-peer-review. I organise science communication events in the form of science slams where scientists, academics, and sometimes artists come together to share their work with the public. I'm the co-organiser of ALICE, a yearly workshop bringing together researchers from complex systems and AI.

Publications

    2026

  1. Learning Developmental Scaffoldings to Guide Self-Organisation
    M Montero, E Najarro, J Schauser, S Risi
    Self-Organisation Preprint. Under review.
    Open access paper Twitter thread Code

    2. 2025

  2. Solving Inverse Problems in Stochastic Self-Organising Systems through Invariant Representations
    E Najarro, N Bessone, S Risi
    Self-Organisation Preprint. Under review.
    Open access paper Code Website

    3. 2024

  3. From Text to Life: On the Reciprocal Relationship between Artificial Life and Large Language Models
    E Nisioti, C Glanois, E Najarro, A Dai, E Meyerson, J Pedersen, L Teodorescu, Conor F. Hayes, S Sudhakaran, S Risi
    Collective intelligence LLM Artificial Life Conference Proceedings, 2024
    Open access paper Twitter thread
  4. Sparse Firing in a Hybrid Central Pattern Generator for Spinal Motor Circuits
    Beck Strohmer, Elias Najarro, Jessica Ausborn, Rune W. Berg, Silvia Tolu
    Computational Neuroscience Neural Computation 36, 759. 2024
    Open access paper Twitter thread Code

    5. 2023

  5. Towards Self-Assembling Artificial Neural Networks through Neural Developmental Programs
    Elias Najarro, Shyam Sudhakaran, Sebastian Risi
    Self-organization Development Artificial Life Conference Proceedings, 2023
    Open access paper Twitter thread Talk Code
  6. MarioGPT: Open-Ended Text2Level Generation through Large Language Models
    S Sudhakaran, M González-Duque, C Glanois, M Freiberger, E Najarro, S Risi
    LLM NeurIPS, 2023
    Open access paper Twitter thread Code Press coverage

    7. 2022

  7. Disentangling Dimensions of Animacy in Human Brain and Behaviour
    Kamila M Jozwik, Elias Najarro, JF van den Bosch, Ian Charest, Radoslaw M Cichy, Nikolaus Kriegeskorte
    Cognitive Neuroscience Communications Biology
    Open access paper Twitter thread
  8. HyperNCA: Growing Developmental Networks with Neural Cellular Automata
    Elias Najarro, Shyam Sudhakaran, Claire Glanois, Sebastian Risi
    RL Self-organization ICLR From Cells to Societies Workshop, 2022
    Open access paper Talk Code Twitter thread
  9. Goal-Guided Neural Cellular Automata: Learning to Control Self-Organising Systems
    Shyam Sudhakaran, Elias Najarro, Sebastian Risi
    RL Self-organization ICLR From Cells to Societies Workshop, 2022
    Open access paper Talk Code Twitter thread
  10. A Unified Substrate for Body-Brain Co-evolution
    Sidney Pontes-Filho, Kathryn Walker, Elias Najarro, Stefano Nichele, Sebastian Risi
    Neuroevolution Conference on Genetic and Evolutionary Computation, GECCO Companion 2022
    Open access paper Talk Code Twitter thread

    11. 2021

  11. Growing 3D Artefacts and Functional Machines with Neural Cellular Automata
    Shyam Sudhakaran, Djordje Grbic, Siyan Li, Adam Katona, Elias Najarro, Claire Glanois, Sebastian Risi
    Self-organization Development Artificial Life Conference Proceedings, 2021
    Open access paper Twitter thread Talk Code Press coverage
  12. EvoCraft: A New Challenge for Open-Endedness
    Djordje Grbic, Rasmus B Palm, Elias Najarro, Claire Glanois, Sebastian Risi
    Open-endedness Applications of Evolutionary Computation — EvoStar, 2021
    Open access paper Code
  13. Machine-learning Methods Applied to Inverse Problems in Motor Neuronal Networks
    Elias Najarro. Supervised by James Avery & Rune Berg
    MSc Thesis Computational Neuroscience University of Copenhagen, 2021

    14. 2020

  14. Meta-learning Through Hebbian Plasticity in Random Networks
    Elias Najarro, Sebastian Risi
    RL NeurIPS, 2020
    Open access paper Video summary Twitter thread Code Press coverage
  15. Testing the Genomic Bottleneck Hypothesis in Hebbian Meta-Learning
    Rasmus B Palm, Elias Najarro, Sebastian Risi
    RL Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 148:100-110, 2021.
    Open access paper Talk Code