Steven Strogatz

Steven Strogatz

Steven Henry Strogatz /ˈstroʊɡæts/ (born August 13, 1959, Torrington, Connecticut) is an American mathematician and the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University. He is known for his contributions to the study of synchronization in dynamical systems, and for his work in a variety of areas of applied mathematics, including mathematical biology and complex network theory.

In particular, his 1998 Nature paper with Duncan Watts, entitled "Collective dynamics of small-world networks", is widely regarded as a seminal contribution to the interdisciplinary field of complex networks, whose applications reach from graph theory and statistical physics to sociology, business, epidemiology, and neuroscience. As one measure of its importance, it was the most highly cited article about networks between 1998 and 2008, and the sixth most highly cited paper in all of physics.

Strogatz's writing includes the 1994 textbook Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos, three popular books, and frequent newspaper articles. His book, published in 2009, The Calculus of Friendship, was called "a genuine tearjerker" and "part biography, part autobiography and part off-the-beaten-path guide to calculus". His trade book Sync was chosen as a Best Book of 2003 by Discover Magazine. Strogatz also filmed a series of lectures on chaos theory for the Teaching Company, released in 2008, and, in late January 2010, Strogatz began writing a weekly column on mathematics in The New York Times. These columns, along with many others penned by Strogatz, now appear in a book The Joy of X released in October 2012. The New York Times columns have been described as "must reads for entrepreneurs and executives who grasp that mathematics is now the lingua franca of serious business analysis."

Read more about Steven Strogatz:  Career and Recognition