Evolution of cooperation, Evolutionary dynamics, Somatic evolution in cancer, Viral dynamics, Language evolution
Awards
Weldon Memorial Prize Albert Wander Prize Akira Okubo Prize
Scientific career
Fields
Mathematical biology
Institutions
Harvard University Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry University of Oxford Princeton University Institute for Advanced Study
Thesis
Stochastic strategies in the prisoner's dilemma(1989)
Doctoral advisor
Karl Sigmund
Doctoral students
David G. Rand Erez Lieberman Aiden[1] Marc Lipsitch Sebastian Bonhoeffer Franziska Michor
Website
www.martinnowak.com
Martin Andreas Nowak (born April 7, 1965[2])[3] is an Austrian-born professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard University. He is one of the leading researchers in evolutionary dynamics.[3] Nowak has made contributions to the fields of evolutionary theory, cooperation, viral dynamics, and cancer dynamics.
Nowak held professorships at Oxford University and at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, before being recruited by Harvard in 2003 when Jeffrey Epstein donated a large sum of money to support Nowak's work and set up a center for studying cooperation in evolution.[4] Nowak was the director of Harvard's resulting Program for Evolutionary Dynamics (PED) from 2003 until 2020, when he was disciplined by being suspended from supervising undergraduate research for two years and having his institute permanently closed down as a punishment for having provided an office, keycard, and passcode, and for allowing Epstein free and unlimited access to PED for over ten years after his conviction for sex crimes.[5][6][7]
Martin Nowak is famous for his extensive contributions to various scientific disciplines, including evolutionary game theory, virology, cancer dynamics, and the evolution of cooperation. Throughout his career, Nowak has collaborated with notable figures such as Robert May[disambiguation needed], Karl Sigmund, and John Maynard Smith. His work spans a wide range of topics, from the somatic evolution of cancer to the origins of language and prelife. Nowak has authored over 300 scientific publications, including many contributions to Nature and Science.
Aside from his scientific career, Nowak has also authored five books. His 2006 work
Evolutionary Dynamics received praise for its unique perspective on theoretical biology and won the R.R. Hawkins Award. In 2011, he co-authored
SuperCooperators, which argues for cooperation as a fundamental principle of evolution, garnering positive reviews. Additionally, Nowak has edited books, including Evolution, Games, and God, which examines the relationship between theology and evolutionary theory. He has received numerous awards for his contributions to science, including the Weldon Memorial Prize, the Albert Wander Prize, the Akira Okubo Prize, the David Starr Jordan Prize and the Henry Dale Prize.
Nowak identifies as a Roman Catholic, advocating for the compatibility of science and religion in the pursuit of truth. His 2024 book, Beyond, is a poetic exploration of the connection between religion and science. In 2015, he received the honorary degree Doctor of Humane Letters from the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology at Berkeley.
^Martin Nowak at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
^Nowak, Martin A.; Highfield, Roger (2012). SuperCooperators: altruism, evolution, and why we need each other to succeed (1. Free Press trade paperback ed.). New York, NY: Free Press. ISBN 978-1-4516-2663-6.
^ abWax, Heather (October 15, 2007). "Cooperation counts for math professor". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on July 3, 2011. Retrieved January 8, 2024. Nowak, 42, a Harvard University mathematician and biologist, is at the forefront of a new field called evolutionary dynamics, in which Darwin's idea of natural selection is formulated in terms of math equations.
^Marks, Stephen M.; Schuker, Lauren A. E. (February 7, 2003). "Magnate donates $30M to sciences". The Harvard Crimson.
^Helmore, Edward (March 27, 2021). "Harvard closes evolution center after finding connections to Jeffrey Epstein". The Guardian.
^Svrluga, Susan (May 1, 2020). "Jeffrey Epstein had his own office at Harvard University — after he was convicted as a sex offender". The Washington Post.
Martin Andreas Nowak (born April 7, 1965) is an Austrian-born professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard University. He is one of the leading researchers...
or Nowak in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. Novak (in Serbo-Croatian and Slovene; Cyrillic: Новак), Novák (in Hungarian, Czech and Slovak), or Nowak (in...
article published in Nature Human Behaviour in 2020, Bethany Burum, MartinNowak, and Moshe Hoffman termed this phenomenon ineffective altruism, that...
building on the paper "The evolution of eusociality" (2010) by Wilson, MartinNowak and Corina Tarnita in Nature, for more importance of group selection...
Marie Nowak (née Caputo; born May 10, 1963) is an American aeronautical engineer and former NASA astronaut and United States Navy officer. Nowak served...
cooperate) strategies, which then give an opening to exploiters. In 1992 MartinNowak and Karl Sigmund demonstrated a strategy called Pavlov (or "win–stay...
objection concerns Dembski's calculation of probabilities. According to MartinNowak, a Harvard professor of mathematics and evolutionary biology, "We cannot...
tumor suppressor genes was proposed by Franziska Michor, Yoh Iwasa, and MartinNowak; "landscaper" genes. In contrast to caretaker genes, gatekeeper genes...
biology and evolutionary dynamics program at Harvard which was run by MartinNowak. According to The Boston Globe, the actual amount received from Epstein...
Lander and MartinNowak. Lieberman Aiden contributed to the founding of evolutionary graph theory along with his PhD supervisor MartinNowak. He has since...
(born 1964), TV entertainer, documentary film producer and lecturer MartinNowak (born 1965), biologist and mathematician Helmut Senekowitsch (1933–2007)...
and efficacy to monotherapies. In a recent study about solid cancers, MartinNowak, Bert Vogelstein, and colleagues showed that in most clinical cases,...
realize I am an oddity — a serious Christian and a respected scientist." MartinNowak (born 1965): evolutionary biologist and mathematician best known for...
faced accusations of sexual harassment. Gay also sanctioned professor MartinNowak for "unprofessional behavior" in his contacts with sex offender Jeffrey...
University to establish the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, directed by MartinNowak, a professor of mathematics and biology. The university received only...
dominant, something greater than 2 would replace the 2. A 2010 paper by MartinNowak, Corina Tarnita, and E. O. Wilson suggested that standard natural selection...
as a prime showpiece of apparently irrational behavior" in a paper by MartinNowak, Karen M. Page, and Karl Sigmund. In the "competitive ultimatum game"...
that although the selfish-gene approach was accepted "until 2010 [when] MartinNowak, Corina Tarnita, and I demonstrated that inclusive fitness theory, often...
of Philosophy degree in 1995. There, he studied under Robert May and MartinNowak. He then returned to the United States for his postdoctoral fellowship...
controversial papers by E. O. Wilson, Bert Hölldobler, MartinNowak and Corina Tarnita. Nowak, Tarnita and Wilson argued that Inclusive fitness theory...
Scientific career Fields Theoretical Biochemistry Institutions University of Vienna Doctoral students MartinNowak Günter P. Wagner Erich Bornberg-Bauer...
seen most clearly in a paper by Erez Lieberman, Christoph Hauert and MartinNowak. In evolutionary graph theory, individuals occupy vertices of a weighted...
new group selection is called multilevel selection theory. In 2010, MartinNowak, C. E. Tarnita and E. O. Wilson argued for multi-level selection, including...
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