Mission

Center of Excellence in Modeling Complexity

To build translational value in state-of-the-art mathematical and computational models of societal challenges.

In global health, climate change, information dynamics, and emergent technologies, the Center of Excellence in Modeling Complexity aims to study how crises emerge, how failures cascade, how innovations occur and spread, and how governance can adapt to these crises. Our team tackles this modeling pipeline through globally recognized research, specialized teaching, and broad scientific collaborations and communication.

Research

What we look into

Contagions

Interacting contagions and higher-order effects

How pathogens, behaviors, and ideas spread and interact with network structure and among themselves.

Selected projects

Contagions

Interacting contagions and higher-order effects

How pathogens, behaviors, and ideas spread and interact with network structure and among themselves.

Networks

Adaptive and temporal networks

Networks that rewire, evolve and unfold in time alongside the dynamics they carry.

Society

Social and cultural dynamics

Opinions, norms and collective behavior as emergent properties of interacting people.

Climate

Adaptation to climate change

How farmers, communities and institutions adapt their practices to a changing climate.

Global health

Infectious diseases and epidemics

How pathogens evolve, how outbreaks emerge, and how we respond to epidemics.

Diagram of a branching cascade where each node carries an intensity, from a seed to dead-ends and absorbing boundaries

Self-reinforcing cascades: a spreading model for beliefs or products of varying intensity or quality

Contagions

Prevalence against transmission rate on board-of-directors data, simulations compared with model predictions

Characteristic scales and adaptation in higher-order contagions

Contagions
Networks

Figure from the paper on governance as a networked satisfiability problem

Governance as a complex, networked, democratic, satisfiability problem

Networks
Society

Community size distributions and disruption curves for Mastodon, Penumbra, BitChute, Voat and Usenet

Measuring centralization of online platforms through size and interconnection of communities

Networks
Society

Share of US cropland that switched crops each year from 2008 to 2022, by type of switch

Innovations through crop switching happen on the diverse margins of US agriculture

Climate
Society

Scatter plots and US county maps showing where trends in climate and in crop choices match

Operationalizing cultural adaptation to climate change: contemporary examples from United States agriculture

Climate
Society

Design cycle for integrated disease models, from research question to modelling approach, parameters and outcomes, built by multidisciplinary teams

A review and agenda for integrated disease models including social and behavioural factors

Global health
Society

Figure from the paper on aircraft-based wastewater surveillance networks

Pandemic monitoring with global aircraft-based wastewater surveillance networks

Global health

Leadership

Who leads the Center

Director

Laurent Hébert-Dufresne

Global recognition

Recognized around the world

2026

Young Scientist Award for Socio- and Econophysics

German Physical Society

Recognizes “outstanding original contributions that use physical methods to develop a better understanding of socio-economic problems.”

2026

Erdős–Rényi Prize

Network Science Society (NetSci)

Widely regarded as the field’s top honor for early-career researchers, awarded for “outstanding achievements in network science and contributions to the interdisciplinary development of the field.”

Affiliations and editorial roles

Founding editor-in-chief