Rate My Professor Adilson E. Motter

Adilson E. Motter is the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University, holding a courtesy appointment in Engineering Sciences and Applied Mathematics. He joined the faculty in March 2006 after serving as a Guest Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Germany and as a Director's Funded Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Motter earned his Ph.D. in 2002 from the University of Campinas in Brazil under Professor Patricio S. Letelier. As Director of the Center for Network Dynamics, he leads research on the dynamical behavior of complex systems and networks, utilizing tools from statistical physics, nonlinear dynamics, network theory, and data science. Key topics include cascading dynamics, spontaneous synchronization, network control, symmetry phenomena, quantum networks, machine learning applied to network problems, and data-driven discovery in network science. Applications encompass quantitative biology, biomedical research, renewable energy, smart power grids, microfluidics, and metamaterials. His interdisciplinary work is supported by affiliations with the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute, Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, and others.

Motter has received numerous awards, including the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship (2009), Weinberg Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research (2009), NSF Faculty Early Career Development Award (2011), Erdös-Rényi Prize in Network Science (2013), Simons Foundation Fellowship in Theoretical Physics (2015), and Senior Scientific Award of the Complex Systems Society (2022). He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, Network Science Society, and American Association for the Advancement of Science. Motter has served on editorial boards of Physical Review X, Journal of Nonlinear Science, Nonlinearity, Chaos, and others, and held positions such as President of the Network Science Society, Chair of the APS Topical Group on Statistical and Nonlinear Physics, and Director of Northwestern's Integrated Science Program. His highly cited publications include "Cascade-based attacks on complex networks" (Physical Review E, 2002), "Heterogeneity in oscillator networks: Are smaller worlds easier to synchronize?" (Physical Review Letters, 2003), "Cascade control and defense in complex networks" (Physical Review Letters, 2004), "Spontaneous synchrony in power-grid networks" (Nature Physics, 2013), and recent works such as "How Heterogeneity Shapes Dynamics and Computation in the Brain" (Neuron, 2025).