Michelle Girvan (born 1977) is an American

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...

and network scientist whose research combines methods from

dynamical system In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water in ...

graph theory In mathematics, graph theory is the study of ''graphs'', which are mathematical structures used to model pairwise relations between objects. A graph in this context is made up of '' vertices'' (also called ''nodes'' or ''points'') which are conn ...

, and statistical mechanics and applies them to problems including

epidemiology Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population. It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evide ...

gene regulation Regulation of gene expression, or gene regulation, includes a wide range of mechanisms that are used by cells to increase or decrease the production of specific gene products (protein or RNA). Sophisticated programs of gene expression are wi ...

, and the study of Information cascades. She is one of the namesakes of the

Girvan–Newman algorithm The Girvan–Newman algorithm (named after Michelle Girvan and Mark Newman) is a hierarchical method used to detect communities in complex systems.Girvan M. and Newman M. E. J.Community structure in social and biological networks Proc. Natl. Acad. ...

, used to detect

community structure In the study of complex networks, a network is said to have community structure if the nodes of the network can be easily grouped into (potentially overlapping) sets of nodes such that each set of nodes is densely connected internally. In the part ...

in complex systems. Girvan is a professor of physics at the

University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the University System of M ...

Education and career

Girvan graduated from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

in 1999, with a double major in mathematics and physics and a minor in political science. She completed a Ph.D. in physics at Cornell University in 2004. Her dissertation, ''The Structure and Dynamics of Complex Networks'', was supervised by

Steven Strogatz Steven Henry Strogatz (), born August 13, 1959, is an American mathematician and the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University. He is known for his work on nonlinear systems, including contributions to the study o ...

. After postdoctoral research at the

Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inclu ...

, she joined the University of Maryland faculty in 2007.

Recognition

In 2017 Girvan was named a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS), after a nomination from the APS Topical Group on Statistical & Nonlinear Physics, "for seminal contributions to the nonlinear and statistical physics of complex networks, including the characterization of network structures and dynamics, and interdisciplinary applications".

Personal life and family

Girvan is the daughter of US Air Force Captain Robert E. Girvan (1942–2009) and Shigeko Afuso Girvan (died 2008). In 2013 she married law professor Jonathan Siegel of George Washington University.

References

External links

Girvan Networks Lab
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Girvan, Michelle 1977 births Living people American physicists American women physicists Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni Cornell University alumni University of Maryland, College Park faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society 21st-century American women