Mason Porter, Fellow of Somerville College and Associate Professor in Applied Mathematics, has won the 2014 Erdős–Rényi Prize. The prize is awarded to a scientist under the age of 40 for research into ‘network science’.
The award can be given to those in either theoretical or experimental research but is especially focused on candidates whose work is interdiscipinary.
“I was very pleased to receive the news about this award as it is very nice to be recognized, and the fact that my outreach efforts were explicitly mentioned in the prize citation is also gratifying,” said Porter. “There are many excellent scholars in network science, and many of them have more citations than me, so it would be impossible for me to win this award without people examining and appreciating the quality of my scholarship itself. In the modern era of artificial ways of judging merit, it is particularly nice to see that.”
Winners are selected by a commission, which is appointed by the Network Science Society board. The 2014 award ceremony took place in a special session at the NetSci conference on June 2-6 at the University of California.
Mason Porter condusts research into several areas of network science and complex systems. This includes topics such as community structure, dynamical systems on networks, and multilayer networks. His award citation recognizes both his fundamental research on the mathematics of networks and his outreach efforts to teach network science to students in schools.