Few young scientists have applied their expertise as broadly as Aaron Clauset; he's spotted patterns in global terrorism events, enumerated how gender affects faculty hiring, and created novel techniques for locating missing connections in social networks, among other pursuits.
This week Clauset, an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Colorado-Boulder, an SFI External Professor, and a former SFI Omidyar Fellow, received the Erdős–Rényi Prize for Young Scientists at NetSci2016, the 2016 International School and Conference on Network Science in Seoul, South Korea.
The Network Science Society, which confers the award, recognizes Clauset “for his contributions to the study of network structure, including Internet mapping, inference of missing links, and community structure, and for his provocative analyses of human conflicts and social stratification.”
The biggest award in network science for young scholars, the prize is awarded annually to a scientist under 40 years old for their outstanding contributions to the interdisciplinary progress of network science.
"Aaron is highly deserving of this Prize," says SFI VP for Science Jennifer Dunne. "As an early career scientist at SFI and now at Boulder, he has gone far beyond the obvious applications of network research to extend our understanding of complex systems in deep and rigorous ways, both in terms of fundamental science as well as applications to important new domains."
Clauset’s research investigates large-scale patterns in biological, social, and technological systems. He actively collaborates with a number of SFI’s faculty, including Cristopher Moore, Dan Larremore, Cosma Shalizi, Mark Newman, and Douglas Erwin.
"I have had the pleasure of knowing Aaron as a student, a postdoc, and a collaborator," says Moore. "His research is constantly pushing network science in new directions."
More about Clauset’s research
About the 2016 International School and Conference on Network Science in Seoul, South Korea