Place and date of birth: Budapest, 10 May 1948
Family status: Married to Mária Streho, two children (Lilla 1974, Andrew 1976)
Education
- M.Sc., Lomonosov University, Moscow, 1972
- Ph.D., Kossuth Lajos University, Debrecen, 1976
- Candidate's degree in Physical Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1983
Positions
- 2005 - present, Professor of Physics, Department of Biological Physics, Eotvos University, Budapest
- 2004 Aug-Dec, Visiting Professor, Dept. of Physics, University of Notre Dame, South Bend
- 2003 -present, Head (part time), Biological Physics Research Group, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
- 2003 November, Visiting Scholar, Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara
- 1999 Oct. - 2000 July, Senior Fellow, Collegium Budapest/Institute for Advanced Study
- 1998 - 2005, Professor of Physics, Head, Department of Biological Physics, Eotvos University, Budapest
- 1991-97 Professor of Physics, (1992-96, Head), Department of Atomic Physics, Eotvos University, Budapest
- 1990 October, Visiting Scientist, Supercomputing Center, KFA Jülich
- 1989 Scientific advisor, RITP, Budapest
- 1989 Visiting Scientist, Emory University, Atlanta
- 1988 Visiting Scientist, Yale University, New Haven
- 1986 Visiting Scientist, Emory University, Atlanta
- 1983-85 Visiting Scientist, Emory University, Atlanta
- 1983-89 Senior Research Associate, RITP
- 1981 British Council scholarship, King's College, London
- 1972-83 Research Associate, (1972-75, Junior) Research Institute for Technical Physics (RITP), Hungarian Acad. Sci.
Professional activities
- 1999 - Head of the Statistical, Biological and Quantum Physics Graduate Program at Eotvos University, Budapest
- Coorganizer, Summer School on Disordered Systems, 1982, Budapest
- Coorganizer, Winter School on Fractals, 1987, Budapest
- Cochairman, International Workshop on Clusters and Patterns, 1988 Budapest
- Cochairman, Fractals in Natural Sciences, Intern. Conf., 1993 Budapest
- Coorganizer, Models of Biological Motion, Workshop, 2000, Budapest
- Chairman, 20-th Congress of the Hungarian Biophysical Society, Budapest, 2001
- Codirector, Complexity from Microscopic to Macroscopic Scales, NATO Advanced Study Institute, Geilo, Norway, 2001
- Coorganizer, Conference on Nanobiology, Atlanta, 2001
Editorial board and committee memberships:
- member of the Advisory Editorial Board of Physica A, North Holland, Amsterdam, 1988-90; 1999 -
- member of the Editorial Board of the series New developments in solid-state physics (in Hungarian), Budapest, 1987-90
- member of the board of the statistical physics section of the Eotvos Lorand Physcial Society 1991-
- member of the Board of the Physics in Life-sciences Division of the European Physical Society, 2002-
- member of the Advisory Editorial Board of Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1990-93
- Managing Editor of Fractals, World Scientific Publ., Singapore, New-York, 1992-2003
- Editorial Board Member, Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General, Institute of Physics, Bristol, England, 1994-95
- Editorial Board Member, Central European Journal of Physics , Warsaw, 2002-2004
- member of the Editorial Board of Fizikai Szemle (in Hungarian), Budapest, 1993
- member, Board of the Physics in Life Sciences Division, EPS
- member, Board of the Statistical and Nonlinear Physics Division, EPS
Teaching:
- Various courses on Fractals, Pattern Formation and Growth Phenomena, Eötvös University, 1985-
- Courses on Theoretical Mechanics and Atomic Physics, 1990
- Construction of a Hele-Shaw cell for educational purposes, Eötvös University, 1987
- Course on "New directions in theoretical biology", 1997-
- Lectures at various summer schools on Fractals
Students supervised:
- K. Baricza, Scaling in directed percolation, 1981 (M.Sc.)
- J. Cserti, Random walks on percolation clusters, 1982 (M.Sc.)
- V. Horvath, Pattern formation in viscous fingering, 1986 (M.Sc.)
- V. Horvath, Spatial chaos and pattern formation, 1991 (Ph. D.)
- A.-L. Barabási, Growing fractal surfaces, 1989 (M.Sc.)
- Z. Csahok, Kinetic roughening, 1994 (M. Sc.)
- E. Somfai, Rough surfaces in geomorphology, 1994 (M. Sc.)
- Sz. Kali, Simulations of acto-myosin motility assays, 1996 (M.Sc.)
- I. Derenyi, Thermal rachets in physics and biology, 1997 (Ph. D)
- Z. Csahok, Collective motion in self-driven systems, 1997 (Ph. D)
- Zoltan Neufeld, Spatiotemporal chaos in open flows and coupled map lattices, 1997 (Ph. D)
- M. Marodi, Synchronization with long range interaction, 2000 (M. Sc.)
- Andras Czirok, Models of collective behaviour in biology, 2000 (Ph. D)
- A. Vassy, Statistical analysis of synchronized clapping, 2001 (M. Sc.)
- Z. Farkas, Transport by Rathchet mechanisms (DNA, granules), 2002 (Ph.D)
- P. Tegzes, Dynamics in dry and wet granular materials, 2002 (Ph.D.)
- B. Hegedus, Migration of irradiated tissue cells in vitro, 2002 (Ph.D.)
- B. Szabo, Nanometer scale fluctuations of cells, nuclear migration in cells on micropatterned surfaces, 2003, (Ph.D.)
- I. Farkas, Networks in life (scaling, eigenvaue spectra), simulations of crowds, 2003, (Ph.D.)
- B Kovács, Metabolic networks and visualization of large graphs (2005)(M.Sc.)
- Z. Nagy, Transitions in models of flocking (2005)(M.Sc.)
- Zs. Akos, Comparing the soaring strategies of birds and people, 2007, (M.Sc.)
- D. Abel, Finding communities in weighted netoworks, 2007, (M.Sc.)
Honors
- 1983 Research Award of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
- 1986 Novobátzky Award of the Hungarian Physical Society
- 1988 Award of the Institute, RITP
- 1988 Doctor of Physical Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
- 1989 - Adjunct Professor of Physics, Department of Physics, Emory University, Atlanta
- 1990 Award of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
- 1995 Corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
- 1995 member of the Academia Europaea
- 1995 - Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston
- 1997 Andras Fay Award, National Organization of Research Students
- 1999 Szechenyi Award
- 2001 regular member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences
- 2003 Leo Szilard Award
- 2006 Fellow of the American Physical Society
Research experience:
- numerical studies of dense liquids, percolation theory, Monte Carlo simulation of cluster models, aggregation phenomena, fractal growth, pattern formation (computer and laboratory experiments), collective phenomena in biological systems (flocking, oscillations, crowds), molecular motors, cell locomotion in vitro
Publications
5 books (on fractals and scaling)
160 papers in international journals (cumulative impact factor above 650)
Several of the above publications have been reviwed in detail (among many others) in the following media (Nature, Science, New Scientist, New York Times, Scientific American, Times, Newsweek, CNN, BBC, Dutch, Belgian TV, Hung. TV)