Dirk Brockmann is a German physicist and Professor at the Institute for Biology at

Humboldt University of Berlin The Humboldt University of Berlin (german: link=no, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public university, public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established ...

and the

Robert Koch Institute The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) is a German federal government agency and research institute responsible for disease control and prevention. It is located in Berlin and Wernigerode. As an upper federal agency, it is subordinate to the Feder ...

, Berlin. Brockmann is known for his work in complex systems,

complex networks Complex Networks is an American media and entertainment company for youth culture, based in New York City. It was founded as a bi-monthly magazine, ''Complex'', by fashion designer Marc (Ecko) Milecofsky. Complex Networks reports on popular ...

computational epidemiology Computational epidemiology is a multidisciplinary field that uses techniques from computer science, mathematics, geographic information science and public health to better understand issues central to epidemiology such as the spread of diseases o ...

, human mobility and

anomalous diffusion Anomalous diffusion is a diffusion process with a non-linear relationship between the mean squared displacement (MSD), \langle r^(\tau )\rangle , and time. This behavior is in stark contrast to Brownian motion, the typical diffusion process descri ...

Career and research

Brockmann studied physics and mathematics at Duke University and the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded i ...

where he received his degree in theoretical physics in 1995 and his PhD in 2003. After postdoctoral positions at the

Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization The Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization in Göttingen, Germany, is a research institute for investigations of complex non-equilibrium systems, particularly in physics and biology. Its founding history goes back to Ludwig Pran ...

, Göttingen he became associate professor in the Department of Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics 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 ...

in 2008. In 2013 he returned to Germany, where he became professor at the Institute for Biology at Humboldt University of Berlin. Brockmann worked on a variety of topics ranging from

computational neuroscience Computational neuroscience (also known as theoretical neuroscience or mathematical neuroscience) is a branch of neuroscience which employs mathematical models, computer simulations, theoretical analysis and abstractions of the brain to ...

, Levy flights, human mobility, computational epidemiology, and complex networks. Brockmann pioneered the scientific use of mass data collected in online games in a 2006 study in which he and his colleagues analyzed the geographic circulation of millions of dollar-bills registered at the online bill tracking website

Where's George? Where's George? is a website that tracks the natural geographic circulation of American paper money. Its popularity has led to the establishment of a number of other currency tracking websites and sites that track other objects, such as used b ...

This study lead to the discovery of universal scaling laws in human mobility, the forecast of spreading routes of the

2009 flu pandemic The 2009 swine flu pandemic, caused by the H1N1 influenza virus and declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) from June 2009 to August 2010, is the third recent flu pandemic involving the H1N1 virus (the first being the 1918–1920 Sp ...

in the United States and effective geographic borders in the United States. Brockmann also pioneered the development of computational models and forecast systems for the global spread of epidemics based on global air-transportation. In a 2013 study Brockmann and his colleague

Dirk Helbing Dirk Helbing (born January 19, 1965) is Professor of Computational Social Science at the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences and affiliate of the Computer Science Department at ETH Zurich. Biography Dirk Helbing studied ph ...

showed that complex global contagion phenomena can be mapped onto simple propagating wave patterns using the theoretical concept of effective distance. This method was employed for import risk estimates during the

Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa The 2013–2016 epidemic of Ebola virus disease, centered in Western Africa, was the most widespread outbreak of the disease in history. It caused major loss of life and socioeconomic disruption in the region, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and S ...

in 2014. Brockmann's research has been featured in an episode of the American crime drama television series ''

Numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers ca ...

''. Since 2017 he has been publishing "Complexity Explorables", which are interactive 3D animations of complex systems.
Complexity Explorables, 3 August 2018

References

External links

Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brockmann, Dirk Complex systems scientists Systems biologists Northwestern University faculty Living people 1969 births 21st-century German physicists Network scientists