Victor Eguiluz

My research career has developed within the field of the Physics of Complex Systems. The consistency and coherence of my research activity is based on the general objective of contributing to the development of concepts and methods for the description of generic phenomena in complex systems, which entails an important methodological component of statistical physics, dynamic systems, and computational methods. From this perspective, the markedly interdisciplinary character of my scientific trajectory is born, with the intention of leveraging the opportunities that arise at the frontiers between research areas, in particular Biology and Social Sciences. The “interdisciplinary” objective is to transfer knowledge, concepts and methods across and between knowledge areas. The research topics developed have been guided by an interest in connecting the theoretical work (generic phenomena, often) with the experimental and empirical (concrete and specific systems), and by a commitment to innovation: in Biology the work covers systems as diverse as the vascular system, the auditory system, the brain, or genetic flow, while in social systems this connection has been channeled through collaborations with sociologists. From this effort to build bridges between disciplines have emerged pioneering work that has opened new lines of research such as the use of functional networks in the brain and the concept of co-evolutionary or adaptive network.

My research has been published in journals of Physics (Phys. Rev. Lett., New J. Phys.) or interdisciplinary nature (Nature, Science, PNAS, Sci. Adv.) and more specifically in other scientific areas outside Physics (Am. J. Sociology, Trends Ecol. Evol., ISME J.), receiving more than 9000 citations in total, with 28 articles with more than 100 citations, with number h (h publications with h or more citations) 45, and a patent. I have directed seven doctoral theses, eight Master’s theses; I am responsible for teaching the Complex Networks course in the Master’s Degree in Physics of Complex Systems at the University of the Balearic Islands. I have been responsible for 3 national research projects, a special action and an integrated action, I have participated in 7 European projects, in a project funded by the James McDonnell Foundation (USA), and I am currently participating in an international consortium funded by KAUST (Saudi Arabia). I have maintained scientific collaborations and carried out stays in centers of international prestige such as the Niels Bohr Institute (Denmark), Rockefeller University (USA), Cornell University (USA) or MIT (USA), among others; I have also maintained collaborations with national companies MIK (S. Coop. Mondragón Investigación en Gestión) and PANGEA (Consulting). I have participated in evaluation commissions of the Juan de la Cierva program (2017), and research projects (ANECA (Spain), ANPCYT (Argentina), NSF (USA), NWO (Netherlands) and pre-doctoral scholarships (Govern Balear).

The current research activity is developed around a transversal research line dedicated to the study of collective phenomena and the structure-function relationship in complex systems, and specific lines focused on questions involving ecological networks, environmental and human impacts on marine life, and human mobility, spatial scales and social networks, and models for the dissemination of opinions, ideas and innovations.