Alex
Alvarez

I'm a postbac in the Computational Cognitive Science Lab at MIT, where I study principles of learning and intelligence across natural and artificial systems. I'm broadly interested in open-endedness, meta-learning, and computational psychiatry. Previously, I studied computer science and psychology at Texas A&M University where I worked with Yoonsuck Choe, Takashi Yamauchi, and Carlos Bolaños.

I came to the U.S. when I was eight years old as a political refugee from Cuba. One day I'd like to provide Cuban students with the same opportunities that I had access to here. Feel free to reach out if you’d like to chat about research or Cuba.

Updates

Limbomorphs abstract accepted to ALife 2026 Jul 26

Talk at INRIA Flowers Lab Mar 26

Workshop Paper Accepted at NeurIPS 2025 Dec 25

Essay on Fernando Pessoa & Consciousness Jan 25

Feature story for Demographic IQ (KBTX) Oct 24

alexrez [at] mit [dot] edu

Scholar Bluesky Github LinkedIn Twitter

Limbomorph species a

Limbomorph species c

Limbomorph species h

Limbomorph species f

Limbomorph species i

Limbomorph species d

Limbomorphs

ALife 2026

Lifelike creatures with species-specific reactions to perturbations emerge from Gifbreeder despite the absence of explicit agents, environments, or local interactions.

Web Paper PDF arXiv Drawing App

GIFBreeder output 1

GIFBreeder output 2

GIFBreeder output 3

GIFBreeder output 4

GIFBreeder output 5

GIFBreeder output 6

GIFBreeder

Interactive Platform

Adding a time variable to Picbreeder brings images to life.

Web App Picbreeder-faithful

Picbreeder alien output

Picbreeder abstract output

Picbreeder clover output

Picbreeder owl output

Picbreeder torso output

Picbreeder two people output

Picbreeder

Interactive Platform

My take on Picbreeder!

Side Quest preview

Side Quest

Interactive Platform

Interactive evolution guiding LLMs.

Saliency process preview

Saliency Thresholds in Neural Code and its Relation to the Power-Law, Gaussian, and Lambert W Function

NeurIPS 2025 Workshop on Symmetry and Geometry in Neural Representations

How does the brain calculate visual saliency?

PDF Demo

AblOEh preview

"AblOEh"

Interactive Platform

Neuroevolutionary dress design.

Synthbreeder preview

Synthbreeder

Interactive Platform

Breed synthesizer sounds.

Boids dynamic perception delay preview

BOIDS + Dynamic Perception Delay

Interactive Demo

How does collective behavior emerge from simple local rules?

Demographic IQ preview

Demographic IQ

Human-Policy Interface

Voter information tool for the 2024 presidential election.

Web App Press Tweet

Previously

Spectral Bias & Saddle Points

Is spectral bias correlated to saddle point drops in the loss landscape?

A Continuum of Algorithms

How does the brain compute physical reasoning?

C. Elegans Connectome

What does the connectome look like on a 3D plane?

Pixel Evolutoin

What are evolutionary algorithms?

Distribution Explorer

What do common probability distributions actually look like?

Zyntora

Can we make a virtual real estate social media app?