ALBERT-LÁSZLÓ BARABÁSI (b. 1967), a Romanian-born Hungarian- American physicist, is the Robert Gray Dodge Professor of Network Science, a Distinguished University Professor of Physics, and the director of the Center for Complex Network Research at Northeastern University. He also holds an appointment in the Department of Medicine at Harvard University and runs a European Research Council project at Central European University, in Budapest, Hungary and Wiena, Austria. In 1999, Barabási changed the course of modern science with his discovery of scale-free networks. Having mapped the World Wide Web, Barabási found—contrary to the mainstream thinking about network theory in mathematics—that network growth is not random but certain nodes within a network are more vital than others, and, most importantly, that it is possible to determine which hubs are crucial to the health of a network. With subsequent studies, Barabási would go on to prove that nearly all real networks follow his scale-free model. Barabási is the recipient of the 2018 Moholy-Nagy Prize, for his humanistic approach to technology, and of numerous science awards, including Italy’s Lagrange-CRT Foundation Prize for outstanding interdisciplinary research, and the US National Academy of Sciences’ Cozzarelli Prize for scientific excellence and originality. He has written several popular books— The Formula (2018), Bursts (2010), and Linked (2002)—and is the author of the award-winning textbooks Network Science (2016) and Fractal Concepts in Surface Growth (1995). Additionally, Barabási co-edited Network Medicine (2017) and The Structure and Dynamics of Networks (2006). His books have been translated into more than twenty languages. Barabási has been a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Complex Networks since 2012 and is a frequent speaker at the organization’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland. His 2019 TEDx Talk, “The Real Relationship Between Your Age and Your Chance of Success,” Show more