Ben MacArthur obtained his doctoral degree in applied mathematics from the University of Southampton, UK. He then spent a number of years training in experimental stem cell biology in the Faculty of Medicine at Southampton before completing his postdoctoral training at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, USA. He is currently Associate Professor of mathematics in the life sciences at Southampton. His lab combines experimental cell biology with computational, statistical and mathematical modelling to better understand molecular regulation of stem cell identity, with biomedical applications in mind. He is particularly interested in the systems biology of cell fate, stochastic models of cell identity and the role that cell-cell variability has in collective cellular decision making.