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Martin NowakMartin Nowak is director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics at Harvard University. Additional recommended knowledge
CareerMartin Nowak studied biochemistry and mathematics at the University of Vienna, where he received his Ph. D. in 1989. His diploma thesis was with Peter Schuster on quasi-species theory and his Ph.D. thesis with Karl Sigmund on evolution of cooperation. In 1989, he went to the University of Oxford as 'Erwin Schrödinger' scholar to work with Robert May. In 1992, Nowak became a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow, in 1995 he became Head of Mathematical Biology and in 1997 Professor of Mathematical Biology. In 1998 he moved from Oxford to Princeton to establish the first program in Theoretical Biology at the Institute for Advanced Study. In July 2003, Nowak moved to Harvard University as Professor of Mathematics and Biology. He is Director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. Nowak is interested in all aspects of mathematical biology. In particular, he works on the dynamics of infectious diseases, cancer genetics, the evolution of cooperation and human language. He has published more than 250 papers and is on the editorial board of various journals. His first book, 'Virus Dynamics' (together with Robert May) was published by Oxford University Press, 2000. Nowak is a corresponding member of the Austrian academy of sciences. He won the Weldon Memorial Prize, the Albert Wander Prize, the Akira Okubo Prize, the David Starr Jordan Prize[1] and the Henry Dale Prize. His 2006 book Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life[2] was published in 2006 to critical acclaim[3] and won the Association of American Publishers R.R. Hawkins Award for the Outstanding Professional, Reference or Scholarly Work of 2006[4]. He is co-director, with Sarah Coakley of the Evolution and Theology of Cooperation research programme at Harvard University, sponsored by the Templeton Foundation [5] He is also a member of the Board of Advisers of the Templeton Foundation [6]. In a lecture given at Harvard in March 2007 called "Evolution and Christianity" he argues that "Science and religion are two essential components in the search for truth. Denying either is a barren approach."[7] He has over 250 scientific publications, of which 37 are in Nature and 24 in Science.[2] Research InterestsHis current research interests include:
In 1990 he proposed, with Robert May a mathematical model which explained the puzzling long delay between HIV infection and AIDS in terms of the evolution of different strains of the virus during individual infections, to the point where the genetic diversity of the virus reaches a threshold whereby the immune system can no longer control it.[8] This detailed quantitative approach depended on assumptions about the biology of HIV which were subsequently confirmed by experiment[9]. In a paper in Science in 2006 Nowak enunciated and unified the mathematical rules for the five understood bases of the evolution of cooperation (kin selection, direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, network reciprocity, and group selection) He suggests that evolution is constructive because of cooperation, and that we might add “natural cooperation” as a third fundamental principle of evolution beside mutation and natural selection[10]. In a paper featured on the front cover of Nature Nowak and colleagues demonstrated that the transition of irregular verbs to regular verbs in English over time obeys a simple inverse-square law, thus providing one of the first quantitative laws in the evolution of language.[11] CareerEducation
Vienna
Oxford
Princeton1998-2003 Head, Program in Theoretical Biology Institute for Advanced Study. From 1999-2003 he was Associated Faculty, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and from 2000-2003 also Associated Faculty, Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics Harvard2003- Professor of Mathematics and Biology and Director, Program for Evolutionary Dynamics Prizes, named lectures and memberships
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Martin_Nowak". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia. |