Adilson E. Motter (born January 1, 1974, in Brazil), is the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Physics at
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Chart ...
, where he has helped develop the concept of
synthetic rescue Synthetic rescue (or synthetic recovery or synthetic viability when a lethal phenotype is rescued ) refers to a genetic interaction in which a cell that is nonviable, sensitive to a specific drug, or otherwise impaired due to the presence of a genet ...
in network biology as well as methods to control the nonlinear dynamics of
complex network
In the context of network theory, a complex network is a graph (network) with non-trivial topological features—features that do not occur in simple networks such as lattices or random graphs but often occur in networks representing real ...
s. In joint work with Takashi Nishikawa, he discovered the phenomenon of converse symmetry breaking (also referred to as asymmetry-induced symmetry). Motter's research is focused on complex systems and nonlinear phenomena, primarily involving
complex network
In the context of network theory, a complex network is a graph (network) with non-trivial topological features—features that do not occur in simple networks such as lattices or random graphs but often occur in networks representing real ...
s,
systems biology
Systems biology is the computational modeling, computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological syst ...
,
chaos
Chaos or CHAOS may refer to:
Arts, entertainment and media Fictional elements
* Chaos (''Kinnikuman'')
* Chaos (''Sailor Moon'')
* Chaos (''Sesame Park'')
* Chaos (''Warhammer'')
* Chaos, in ''Fabula Nova Crystallis Final Fantasy''
* Cha ...
and
statistical physics
Statistical physics is a branch of physics that evolved from a foundation of statistical mechanics, which uses methods of probability theory and statistics, and particularly the mathematical tools for dealing with large populations and approxi ...
.
Scientific activity
Motter has contributed to the study of nonlinear phenomena in
complex systems. He and his collaborators have established conditions for the
synchronization of power grids and other complex networks. Together with his former student Z. Nicolaou, he designed a class of mechanical metamaterials that exhibit longitudinal negative compressibility. He has devised local methods for cascade control in distributed systems and his team advanced the large-scale modeling of cascading failures.
His group has studied implications of these methods for the recovery of lost function in biological and ecological networks and for the control of complex networks in general. His first publication in network science established the three degrees of separation for English words.
In other areas, most noticeably chaos theory, he is known for accommodating the formalism of chaos theory within general relativity. Along with colleagues, he also formalized the concept of doubly transient chaos in dissipative dynamical systems and discovered that network dynamics can exhibit sensitive dependence on network structure much in the same way chaotic dynamics exhibits sensitive dependence on initial conditions or parameters.
Together with Marc Timme, he wrote the review “Antagonistic Phenomena in Network Dynamics”, which discusses a variety of seemly paradoxical or highly counterintuitive effects in collective network dynamics.
Awards
Motter is a Fellow of the
American Physical Society.
He was selected as a
Sloan Research Fellow
The Sloan Research Fellowships are awarded annually by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation since 1955 to "provide support and recognition to early-career scientists and scholars". This program is one of the oldest of its kind in the United States.
...
in 2009, received an
NSF CAREER Award in 2011, and was awarded the
Erdös-Rényi Prize in Network Science in 2013. In 2014 he was identified among the 30 most promising scientists under the age of 40 born in Latin America, according to a survey conducted jointly by the magazine Qué Pasa and the blog LatinAmericanScience.org.
LatinAmérica Genial
Qué Pasa, May 2, 2014.
In 2015, the Simons Foundation named Motter one of their Fellows in Theoretical Physics.
He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an American international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsi ...
and in 2020 was named a Fellow of the Network Science Society. In 2022, Motter received the Senior Scientific Award of th
Complex Systems Society
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Motter, Adilson
1974 births
Living people
Brazilian scientists
Brazilian physicists
Complex systems scientists
Systems biologists
Chaos theorists
Northwestern University faculty
Sloan Research Fellows
Fellows of the American Physical Society
Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
21st-century American physicists
Brazilian people of Italian descent
Network scientists