Alessandro Vespignani (born April 4, 1965) is an Italian-American physicist, best known for his work on

complex network In the context of network theory, a complex network is a graph (network) with non-trivial topological features—features that do not occur in simple networks such as lattices or random graphs but often occur in networks representing real s ...

s, and particularly for work on the applications of

network theory Network theory is the study of graphs as a representation of either symmetric relations or asymmetric relations between discrete objects. In computer science and network science, network theory is a part of graph theory: a network can be defi ...

to the mathematical modeling of infectious disease, applications of

computational epidemiology Computational epidemiology is a multidisciplinary field that uses techniques from computer science, mathematics, geographic information science and public health to better understand issues central to epidemiology such as the spread of diseases or ...

, and for studies of the topological properties of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

. He is currently the Sternberg Family Distinguished University Professor of Physics, Computer Science and Health Sciences at

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston. Established in 1898, the university offers undergraduate and graduate programs on its main campus as well as satellite campuses in ...

, where he is the director of th
Network Science Institute
Vespignani and his team have contributed mathematical and computational modeling analysis on several disease outbreaks, including 2009 H1N1 flu, Ebola epidemic in West Africa, Zika epidemic, and the

Covid-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

. Vespignani is author, together with Romualdo Pastor-Satorras, of the book ''Evolution and Structure of the Internet''. Together with Alain Barrat and Marc Barthelemy he has published in 2008 the monograph ''Dynamical Processes on Complex Networks''.

Career and research

Vespignani received his undergraduate degree and Ph.D., both in physics and both from the University of Rome “

La Sapienza The Sapienza University of Rome ( it, Sapienza – Università di Roma), also called simply Sapienza or the University of Rome, and formally the Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza", is a public research university located in Rome, Ita ...

”, in 1990 and 1993, respectively. Following postdoctoral research at

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

and

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...

, he worked at the

International Centre for Theoretical Physics The Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) is an international research institute for physical and mathematical sciences that operates under a tripartite agreement between the Italian Government, United Nations Education ...

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...

for five years, and briefly at the

University of Paris-Sud Paris-Sud University (French: ''Université Paris-Sud''), also known as University of Paris — XI (or as Université d'Orsay before 1971), was a French research university distributed among several campuses in the southern suburbs of Paris, in ...

, before moving to

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universit ...

in 2004, and then to

in 2011. Vespignani has worked in a number of areas of physics, including characterization of non-equilibrium phenomena and phase transitions, computer science,

network science Network science is an academic field which studies complex networks such as telecommunication networks, computer networks, biological networks, cognitive and semantic networks, and social networks, considering distinct elements or actors repre ...

and

. He has collaborated with, among others,

Luciano Pietronero Luciano Pietronero (born 15 December 1949) is an Italian physicist (statistical physics) and full professor at the department of Physics at the Sapienza University of Rome. He is also Director of the Institute of Complex Systems of the National ...

Benoit Mandelbrot Benoit B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010) was a Polish-born French-American mathematician and polymath with broad interests in the practical sciences, especially regarding what he labeled as "the art of roughness" of phy ...

, Betz Halloran, Ira Longini, and David Lazer. He describes his current research as being focused on "interdisciplinary application of statistical and numerical simulation methods in the analysis of epidemic and spreading phenomena and the study of biological, social and technological networks." He is best known, however, for his work on

s. Of particular note is his work with Romualdo Pastor-Satorras, in which the two demonstrated that for a disease propagating on a random

scale-free network A scale-free network is a network whose degree distribution follows a power law, at least asymptotically. That is, the fraction ''P''(''k'') of nodes in the network having ''k'' connections to other nodes goes for large values of ''k'' as : P(k) ...

the transmission probability or

infectivity In epidemiology, infectivity is the ability of a pathogen to establish an infection. More specifically, infectivity is a pathogen's capacity for horizontal transmission — that is, how frequently it spreads among hosts that are not in a parent� ...

necessary to sustain an outbreak tends to zero in the limit of large network size. Vespignani’s works on modeling the spatial spread of epidemics includes the realistic and data-driven modeling of emerging infectious diseases, and contributions to computational epidemiology by developing specific tools for the analysis of the global spread of epidemics. During the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

, Vespignani’s team investigated how travel and quarantine influenced the dynamics of the spread of SARS-CoV-2. The modeling analysis mapped the early dispersal of infections and the temporal windows of the introduction of SARS-CoV-2 and onset of local transmission in Europe and the USA, showing that hidden outbreaks were spreading almost completely undetected in major US cities. Vespignani research contributed also to covid forecasting and scenario analysis.

Honors

Vespignani is an elected fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

and the Network Science Society. He has been inducted in the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of Humanities, Letters, Law, and Sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europea ...

(section Physics and Engineering) in 2011. * Aspen Institute Italia Award for scientific research and collaboration between Italy and the United States, 2016 *

Doctorate Honoris Causa An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hon ...

from

Delft University of Technology Delft University of Technology ( nl, Technische Universiteit Delft), also known as TU Delft, is the oldest and largest Dutch public technical university, located in Delft, Netherlands. As of 2022 it is ranked by QS World University Rankings among ...

in the Netherlands, 2017 * John Graunt award for extraordinary achievements in one of the population sciences, 2018 * Senior Scientific award of the Complex Systems Society for outstanding contributions to Complex Systems & Network sciences, 2108 * Premio Nazionale di Divulgazione Scientifica, Associazione Italiana del Libro, 2019 * Euler Award, Network Science Society, 2020 * Knight: ''

Order of the star of Italy The Order of the Star of Italy ( it, Ordine della Stella d'Italia ) is an Italian order of chivalry that was founded in 2011. The order was reformed from the Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity by the 11th President of Italy, Giorgio Napoli ...

'',

9 December 2020 *Elected honorary fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2022

Notable publications

* * * * * * * Tizzoni, M., Bajardi, P., Poletto, C., Ramasco, J.J., Balcan, D., Goncalves, B., Perra, N., Colizza, V., Vespignani, A., Real-time numerical forecast of global epidemic spreading: case study of 2009 A/H1N1pdm. ''BMC Med'' 10, 165 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1186/1741-7015-10-165. * * * Piontti, A. P., Perra, N., Rossi, L., Samay, N., & Vespignani, A. (2019). ''Charting the next pandemic: modeling infectious disease spreading in the data science age''. Heidelberg: Springer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vespignani, Alessandro 20th-century Italian physicists Complex systems scientists Indiana University faculty Academic staff of Paris-Sud University Sapienza University of Rome alumni Living people 1965 births Northeastern University faculty Yale University fellows Network scientists Fellows of the American Physical Society