Rate My Professor Adam Landberg

Adam Landsberg is Professor of Physics, Chair of the Department of Physics, and Natural Sciences Convener at Scripps College as part of the W.M. Keck Science Department serving Claremont McKenna College, Pitzer College, and Scripps College. He earned his A.B. in physics from Princeton University with thesis adviser Val Fitch and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley under dissertation adviser Edgar Knobloch. After completing his doctorate, Landsberg held a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship at the Georgia Institute of Technology with Kurt Wiesenfeld. He began his academic career as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Haverford College and joined the Keck Science Department in 1998, advancing through the ranks to full professor.

Landsberg's research focuses on mathematical and computational modeling of complex systems across various scientific domains. His interests include opinion-dynamics models on the spread of ideas in societies, network theory applied to human brains and demographics, nonlinear dynamical systems encompassing chaos and bifurcation theory, pattern formation and symmetries relevant to fluid convection and stars, combinatorial games, economic and queuing systems, synchronization in Josephson junction arrays, and renormalization applications. He has produced over 40 peer-reviewed publications with more than 648 citations. Key publications comprise "An Assimilation Anomaly: Averaging-induced reversal of overall opinion in two interacting societies" (Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 2023), "Majority Rule or Majority Ruin" (The Mathematical Intelligencer, 2025), "Construction and Analysis of Random Networks with Explosive Percolation" (Physical Review Letters, 2009), "Nonlinear dynamics in combinatorial games: Renormalizing Chomp" (Chaos, 2007), and "Transitioning Out of the Coronavirus Lockdown: A Framework for Evaluating Zone-Based Social Distancing" (Frontiers in Public Health, 2020). Landsberg has presented public lectures at Scripps College, including Tuesday Noon Lectures, and frequently collaborates with students on research projects featured in faculty accomplishments.