Image: © 2007 Erik Jacobs, Jacobs Photographic
Martin Nowak,
director
Contact
Program for Evolutionary Dynamics
Harvard University
One Brattle Square, Ste. 6
Cambridge, MA
USA, 02138-3758
Phone: +1 (617) 496 4737
Fax: +1 (617) 496 4629
Courses
Recent Press
2007 article in The New York Times
2007 article in The Boston Globe
2007 article in Harvard Magazine
2007 interview in Panorama news magazine
2007 article in Yomiuri newspaper
2007 article in Die Presse newspaper
Publications
Books
Selected list
Articles in Scientific American and Natural History
Complete list
Martin A. Nowak is Professor of Biology and of Mathematics at Harvard University and Director of Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. Dr Nowak works on the mathematical description of evolutionary processes including the evolution of cooperation and human language, the dynamics of virus infections and human cancer. His major discoveries include: the mechanism of HIV disease progression (1991), spatial game dynamics (1992), generous tit-for-tat and win-stay,lose-shift (1993), the rapid turnover and evolution of drug resistance in HIV infection (1995), quantifying the dynamics of HBV infection (1996), mechanisms for the evolution of genetic redundancy (1997), the evolution of cooperation by indirect reciprocity (1998), the first mathematical approach for studying the evolution of human language (1999-2002), evolutionary game dynamics in finite populations and the 1/3 rule (2004), evolutionary graph theory (2005), the first quantification of the in vivo kinetics of a human cancer (2005), five rules for the evolution of cooperation (2006), the dynamics of language regularization (2007) and "winners don't punish" (2008). At the moment Dr Nowak is working on ‘prelife’, which is a formal approach to study the origin of evolution.
An Austrian by birth, he studied biochemistry and mathematics at the University of Vienna with Peter Schuster and Karl Sigmund. He received his Ph.D. sub auspiciis praesidentis in 1989. He went on to the University of Oxford as an Erwin Schrödinger Scholar and worked there with Robert May, the later Lord May of Oxford, with whom he co-authored numerous articles and his first book, Virus Dynamics (OUP, 2000). Nowak was Guy Newton Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College and later Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in Biomedical Sciences and E. P. Abraham Junior Research Fellow at Keble College. Dr. Nowak became head of the mathematical biology group in Oxford in 1995 and Professor of Mathematical Biology in 1997. A year later he moved to Princeton to establish the first program in theoretical biology at the Institute for Advanced Study. He accepted his present position at Harvard University in 2003.
A corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Dr. Nowak is the recipient of Oxford’s Weldon Memorial Prize, the Albert Wander Prize of the University of Bern, the Akira Okubo Prize of the Society for Mathematical Biology, the Roger E. Murray Prize awarded by the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance, the David Starr Jordan Prize given jointly by Stanford, Cornell, and Indiana universities, and the Henry Dale Prize of The Royal Institution, London. He has delivered numerous lectures in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. He is a former member of the Templeton Foundation Board of Advisors. He is a member of the scientific advisory board of the University of Vienna and the Institute of Science and Technology Austria. Dr. Nowak is the author of more than 270 papers published in scientific journals. His latest book, Evolutionary Dynamics, which was published by Harvard University Press in 2006, provides an overview of the powerful yet simple laws that govern the evolution of living systems.
Current Research Interests
| Evolutionary dynamics |
| Somatic evolution of cancer, genetic instability |
| Molecularly targeted anti-cancer therapy |
| Infectious diseases, immunology, virus dynamics |
| Quasispecies theory |
| Genetic redundancy |
| Evolutionary game theory |
| Adaptive dynamics |
| Finite populations |
| Evolutionary graph theory |
| Evolution of language |
| Cooperation, fairness, reputation |
| Indirect reciprocity |
| Group selection |
| Experimental games |
| Origin of evolution, prelife |
Education
| 1975-1983 | Albertus Magnus Gymnasium in Vienna |
| 1983-1989 | University of Vienna, studying Biochemistry and Mathematics |
| 1985 | First Diploma: Biochemistry (with highest honors) |
| 1987 | Diploma thesis: Theoretical Chemistry |
| 1987 | Second Diploma: Biochemistry (with highest honors) |
| 1987-1989 | Doctoral thesis: Mathematics |
| 1989 | Doctor rerum naturalium (sub auspiciis praesidentis) |
Scientific Career
| Vienna | |
|---|---|
| 1987-1988 | Institute for Theoretical Chemistry, Professor Peter Schuster |
| 1987-1989 | Institute for Mathematics, Professor Karl Sigmund |
| Sept-Nov 1988 | Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany, Professor Manfred Eigen |
| 1993 | "Habilitation" at the Institute of Mathematics, University of Vienna (Universitäts Dozent) |
| Oxford | |
|---|---|
| 1989-1990 | Erwin Schrödinger Scholarship to work with Professor Sir Robert May |
| 1990-1992 | Guy Newton Junior Research Fellow, Wolfson College |
| 1992-1998 | Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in Biomedical Sciences |
| 1993-1996 | E. P. Abraham Junior Research Fellow, Keble College |
| 1995-1998 | Head of Mathematical Biology Group |
| 1996-1998 | Senior Research Fellow, Keble College |
| 1997-1998 | Professor of Mathematical Biology |
| Princeton | |
|---|---|
| 1998-2003 | Head, Program in Theoretical Biology Institute for Advanced Study |
| 1999-2003 | Associated Faculty, Princeton University, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology |
| 2000-2003 | Associated Faculty, Princeton University, Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics |
| Harvard | |
|---|---|
| 2003- | Professor of Mathematics and Biology |
| 2003- | Director, Program for Evolutionary Dynamics |
Prizes, Named Lectures and Memberships
| 1990 | Prize from the Austrian Science Minister |
| 1990 | Promotion sub auspiciis praesidentis rei publicae |
| 1995 | Richardson Lecture, Keble College, Oxford |
| 1996 | Weldon Memorial Prize |
| 1997 | Shanks Lecture, Vanderbilt University |
| 1998 | Albert Wander Prize and Memorial Lecture, University of Bern |
| 1999 | Roger F. Murray Prize, Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance |
| 1999 | Akira Okubo Prize, International and Japanese Society for Mathematical Biology |
| 1999 | Erwin Schroedinger Lecture, University of Vienna |
| 1999 | Porter Lecture, Rice University |
| 2000 | Gergen Lecture, Duke University |
| 2001 | David Starr Jordan Prize, Stanford University, Cornell University, Indiana University |
| 2001 | Rainich Lectures, University of Michigan |
| 2001 | Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences |
| 2001 | Benjamin Pinkel Lecture, University of Pennsylvania |
| 2003 | Henry Dale Prize, The Royal Institution, London |
| 2006 | R.R. Hawkins Award for Evolutionary Dynamics, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division of the American Association of Publishers |
Editorial Work
Editorial board member: Proceedings of the Royal Society London, Journal of Theoretical Biology, Journal of Theoretical Medicine, Journal of Difference Equations, International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos. Referee: Nature, Science, PNAS, and others.