DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

Professor Motter's research is focused on the dynamical behavior of complex systems and networks. His research group uses a combination of tools from statistical physics, nonlinear dynamics, network theory, and data science to study a wide class of complex physical, biological, and engineered systems. Research topics pursued in the group include cascading dynamics, spontaneous synchronization, network control, and symmetry phenomena; quantum networks, machine learning applied to network problems, and data-driven discovery in network science; and applications to quantitative biology, biomedical research, renewable energy, smart power grids, microfluidics, and metamaterials. This research is theoretical and computational but benefits from close collaborations with experimentalists and researchers from other disciplines.

Professor Motter is the director of the Center for Network Dynamics.

Awards and Honors

• Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, 2009
• Weinberg Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research, 2009
• Northwestern-Argonne Early Career Investigator Award for Energy Research, 2010
• NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, 2011
• Erdös-Rényi Prize in Network Science, Network Science Society, 2013
• Fellow of the American Physical Society, 2013
• Simons Foundation Fellowship in Theoretical Physics, 2015
• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2015
• Scialog Fellow, Research Corporation and Moore Foundation, 2015
• Outstanding Referee, American Physical Society Journals, 2016
• Fellow of the Network Science Society, 2020
• Senior Scientific Award, Complex Systems Society, 2022

Selected Publications: 

An up-to-date list of publications can be found at http://dyn.phys.northwestern.edu/publications.html