Mark Newman

Anatol Rapoport Distinguished University Professor of Physics
Department of Physics and Center for the Study of Complex Systems
University of Michigan

External Faculty
Santa Fe Institute

Our group conducts research on the structure and function of networks, particularly social and information networks, which we study using a combination of empirical methods, analysis, and computer simulation. Among other things, we have investigated scientific coauthorship networks, citation networks, email networks, friendship networks, epidemiological contact networks, and animal social networks; we've studied fundamental network properties such as degree distributions, centrality measures, assortative mixing, vertex similarity, and community structure, and made analytic or computer models of disease propagation, friendship formation, the spread of computer viruses, the Internet, and network navigation.

Information

Selected publications:

  1. The structure of scientific collaboration networks, M. E. J. Newman, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98, 404-409 (2001).
  2. Random graphs with arbitrary degree distributions and their applications, M. E. J. Newman, S. H. Strogatz, and D. J. Watts, Phys. Rev. E 64, 026118 (2001).
  3. Assortative mixing in networks, M. E. J. Newman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 208701 (2002).
  4. The structure and function of complex networks, M. E. J. Newman, SIAM Review 45, 167-256 (2003).
  5. Modularity and community structure in networks, M. E. J. Newman, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 103, 8577-8582 (2006).
  6. Hierarchical structure and the prediction of missing links in networks, A. Clauset, C. Moore, and M. E. J. Newman, Nature 453, 98–101 (2008).
  7. Power-law distributions in empirical data, Aaron Clauset, Cosma Rohilla Shalizi, and M. E. J. Newman, SIAM Review 51, 661-703 (2009).
  8. Graph spectra and the detectability of community structure in networks, Raj Rao Nadakuditi and M. E. J. Newman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 108, 188701 (2012).
  9. Percolation on sparse networks, Brian Karrer, M. E. J. Newman, and Lenka Zdeborová, Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 208702 (2014).
  10. Structure and inference in annotated networks, M. E. J. Newman and Aaron Clauset, Nature Communications 7, 11863 (2016).
  11. Aspirational pursuit of mates in online dating markets, Elizabeth E. Bruch and M. E. J. Newman, Science Advances 4, eaap9815 (2018).
  12. Network structure from rich but noisy data, M. E. J. Newman, Nature Physics 14, 542-545 (2018).
  13. Message passing on networks with loops, George T. Cantwell and M. E. J. Newman, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 116, 23398–23403 (2019).
  14. Efficient computation of rankings from pairwise comparisons, M. E. J. Newman, Journal of Machine Learning Research 24, 238 (2023).

Research group

Courses

Previous courses:

Other information

Cover imageNew book: I have a new book, entitled The Science of Music, about the physics and broader science of music, including the physics of sound, acoustics, hearing, music technology, and the design and function of musical instruments. More information, along with some sample chapters, can be found here.


The second edition of my book Networks is now available from Oxford University Press. Information about it is here. The Amazon page is also a good place to look for info.


If you are looking for maps of the US election results, click here.


Our work on generalized communities in networks was featured on the cover of Physical Review Letters.


With Daniel Dorling and Anna Barford: The Atlas of the Real World, a popular book containing 366 cartograms showing all kinds of different features of the world today.


Our work on density-equalizing map projections appeared on the cover of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.


Contact details:

I am not the only professor called Mark Newman at the University of Michigan. I'm the physicist who works on networks. There is another Mark Newman in the UM School of Information who works on human-computer interaction.

Here are my contact details:

Department of Physics
University of Michigan
Randall Laboratory
450 Church Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1040

Phone: (734) 764-4437
Email: mejn@umich.edu


Last modified: February 5, 2024

Mark Newman, Department of Physics, University of Michigan