Manlio De Domenico is an Italian physicist and complex systems scientist, currently Professor of Physics at the
University of Padua and previously at the
Fondazione Bruno Kessler in
Trento
Trento ( or ; Ladin language, Ladin and ; ; ; ; ; ), also known in English as Trent, is a city on the Adige, Adige River in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol in Italy. It is the capital of the Trentino, autonomous province of Trento. In the 16th ...
(Italy). In 2014 he has co-founded the Mediterranean School of Complex Networks, and in 2019 he has contributed to found the Italian Chapter of the
Complex Systems Society, for which he served as first President.
The focus of his research is on
complex adaptive system
A complex adaptive system (CAS) is a system that is ''complex'' in that it is a dynamic network of interactions, but the behavior of the ensemble may not be predictable according to the behavior of the components. It is '' adaptive'' in that the ...
s and
big data analysis, where he is best known for his theoretical and computational work in
network science
Network science is an academic field which studies complex networks such as telecommunication networks, computer networks, biological networks, Cognitive network, cognitive and semantic networks, and social networks, considering distinct eleme ...
,
statistical physics and
nonlinear dynamics of
multilayer systems.
Early life and education
He was born in
Messina
Messina ( , ; ; ; ) is a harbour city and the capital city, capital of the Italian Metropolitan City of Messina. It is the third largest city on the island of Sicily, and the 13th largest city in Italy, with a population of 216,918 inhabitants ...
in 1984. He got his Ph.D. in
nuclear and
astroparticle physics from the
University of Catania and the
Scuola Superiore di Catania in 2012, proposing a data-driven model for the propagation of
Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR) in a magnetized Universe and a multiscale approach to analyze their anisotropic distribution at Earth, with visiting scholarships at the Institute for Nuclear Theory of the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...
and the
Institut de physique nucléaire d'Orsay.
Career and research
He held postdoctoral positions (2012-2013) at the School of Computer Science of the
University of Birmingham
The University of Birmingham (informally Birmingham University) is a Public university, public research university in Birmingham, England. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham (founded in 1825 as ...
(UK), and (2013-2016) at the
University of Rovira i Virgili (Spain). In 2016 he has been a visiting scholar at the
Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems. From 2016 to 2018 he held the “
Juan de la Cierva” senior fellowship at the
University of Rovira i Virgili. Since 2018 he directs the Complex Multilayer Networks (CoMuNe) Lab founded at the
Fondazione Bruno Kessler.
He has published more than 180 scientific papers, with interdisciplinary contributions in
computational social science,
network epidemiology,
network neuroscience,
network medicine and
systems biology. Notable works include the tensorial formulation of multilayer structure and dynamics,
applications to
community structure and coupling of
human behavior
Human behavior is the potential and expressed capacity (Energy (psychological), mentally, Physical activity, physically, and Social action, socially) of human individuals or groups to respond to internal and external Stimulation, stimuli throu ...
with
epidemic spreading,
network geometry,
for multiscale analysis of the interplay between structure and dynamics,
percolation
In physics, chemistry, and materials science, percolation () refers to the movement and filtration, filtering of fluids through porous materials. It is described by Darcy's law. Broader applications have since been developed that cover connecti ...
and network robustness to perturbations,
.
His collaborators include
Alex Arenas,
Sylvie Briand,
Guido Caldarelli,
James Cronin,
Shlomo Havlin,
Vito Latora,
Yamir Moreno,
Mason Porter,
Steven Strogatz and
Alan Andrew Watson.
Awards and honours
In 2023, h
was awarded a significant grantfrom the ''Fondo Italiano per la Scienza'' (FIS) of the
Italian Ministry of University and Research, distinguishing himself as one of 47 exceptional scientists selected from 1,912 applicants. This grant provides substantial research funding aimed at developing optimal strategies for adapting human-made systems and networks to the current and future effects of
climate change
Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...
, addressing key challenges at the intersection of complex systems science and environmental change.
Other awards and recognitions:
* 2020: ''Young Scientist Award for Socio- and Econophysics'', from the
German Physical Society for Multilayer modeling and analysis of complex socio-economic systems
* 2019: ''IUPAP Young Scientist Award on Statistical Physics'', from the
International Union of Pure and Applied Physics
The International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP; ) is an international non-governmental organization whose mission is to assist in the worldwide development of physics, to foster international cooperation in physics, and to help in the ...
C3 commission, for Interdisciplinary Applications of Statistical Physics
* 2017:
USERN Prize in Formal Sciences, from
USERN
The Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (official acronym – USERN) is a non-profit organization and network for non-military scientific investigation and policy-making. USERN was established on January 1, 2016, and the basic s ...
, for modeling the complexity of systems of systems
* 2016: ''Junior Scientific Award'', from the
Complex Systems Society, for a number of pioneering contributions to the field of multilayer networks
* 2012: ''Bruno Rossi Prize'', from the
Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN) for the Best Italian PhD thesis in Nuclear and Astroparticle Physics
Trivia
His influential article, ''Complesso è diverso da complicato: per questo serve multidisciplinarietà,'' which discusses the difference between complex and complicated systems and argues for the importance of multidisciplinarity, was featured in ''
Il Sole 24 Ore'' (Nòva supplement, 6 March 2022, p. 18). This piece was selected by the Italian Ministry of Education as one of the three texts for the 2022 supplementary session of the upper secondary education Italian exams, alongside works by
W. Churchill and
Philippe Daverio.
xternal Link to the Italian Exam Documenthttps://www.istruzione.it/esame_di_stato/202122/Italiano/Suppletiva/P000_SUP22.pdf)
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:De Domenico, Manlio
1984 births
Living people
Italian physicists
University of Catania alumni