Washington

Eisenstein: straight-talking attitude. Credit: AM. PHYS. SOC.

For almost two decades, scientists at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) in New Mexico have been struggling to describe some of the world's most complicated systems. But simplicity is the goal of their new boss, a straight-talking nuclear physicist named Robert Eisenstein.

Eisenstein is a seasoned administrator who ran the physics directorate at the National Science Foundation (NSF) from 1997 to 2001. He was then seconded from the NSF to CERN, the European particle-physics lab, where he has been helping to install a 7,000-tonne detector called ATLAS.

Last month, he was named president of the SFI, which specializes in the study of complexity — an approach to the modelling of everything from the pattern of spots on a cheetah to the movements of the stock market.

The SFI has always relied on informal processes to keep it running and to bring in new talent, says Stuart Kauffman, a biophysicist and member of the SFI's science board. When Eisenstein takes over next month, he may take a more structured management approach.

He has a knack for grasping the big picture and “not getting overwhelmed by the details”, says Joseph Deahmer, current head of the NSF's physics division.

The SFI was set up in 1984 by an iconoclastic group of researchers from nearby Los Alamos National Laboratory, who wanted to bring a new approach to science. They sought to apply their ideas about complexity to hard-to-quantify topics, such as cellular behaviour and evolution, and even the social sciences.

“We're all very aware of the fact that that institutions tend to lose their edge over time,” notes Erica Jen, a mathematician and research professor at the SFI. She says that many see Eisenstein's appointment as a chance to boost the recruitment of fresh talent into the institute.

Eisenstein thinks his track record at the NSF can help.

“I saw an enormous variety of different kinds of science come across my desk,” he says. “And I learned a lot by watching what was happening in those programmes.”