Joshua E. S. Socolar, Professor  

Joshua E. S. Socolar

Office Location: 096 Physics
Office Phone: (919) 660-2557
Email Address: socolar@phy.duke.edu
Web Page: http://www.phy.duke.edu/~socolar

Specialties:
Nonlinear dynamics and complex systems
Theoretical condensed matter physics
Biological physics

Education:
PhD, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 1987
BA, Haverford College, Haverford, PA, 1980

Research Categories: Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics; Nonlinear Dynamics; Systems Biology

Research Description: Prof. Socolar is interested in the principles that determine collective behavior in condensed matter and dynamical systems. His current research interests include:

  • Organization and function of complex dynamical networks, especially biological networks, but also including electronic circuits and social interaction networks;
  • Mechanistic models of genetic regulatory networks;
  • Limit-periodic structures, quasicrystals, packing problems, and tiling theory.
  • Self-assembly of colloidal particles with designed interactions.

Areas of Interest:
Theoretical condensed matter physics
Nonlinear dynamics and control theory
Statistical mechanics in nonequilibrium systems
Complex Boolean networks
Genetic regulatory networks
Aperiodic Tilings
Duke Center for Systems Biology
Center for Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences
Center for Nonlinear and Complex Systems
Duke Network Analysis Center
Program in Computational Biology and Bioinformatics

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

  1. J.E.S. Socolar and J.M. Taylor, Forcing nonperiodicity with a single tile, The Mathematical Intelligencer, vol. 34 no. 1 (Spring, 2012) [doi]  [abs].
  2. T. Byington and J. E. S. Socolar, Hierarchical freezing in a lattice model, Physical Review Letters, vol. 108 (January, 2012), pp. 045701 [doi]  [abs].
  3. X. Cheng, M. Sun and J. E. S. Socolar, Autonomous Boolean modelling of developmental gene regulatory networks, J. Royal Soc. Interface (2012) [doi]  [abs].
  4. R. Durrett, J. P. Gleeson, A. Lloyd, P. J. Mucha, F. Shi, D. Sivakoff, J. E. S. Socolar, C. Varghese, Graph fission in an evolving voter model, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. 109 no. 10 (2012), pp. 3682-3687 [doi]  [abs].
  5. X. Gong and J. E. S. Socolar, Quantifying the complexity of random Boolean networks, Physical Review E, vol. 85 (2012), pp. 066107 [doi]  [abs].

Bio/Profile
For more information, see Prof. Socolar's Home Page.

Current Ph.D. Students   (Former Students)

Postdocs Mentored

  • Volkan Sevim (March, 2008 - August, 2010)  
  • Bjorn Samuelsson (November, 2005 - August 31, 2007)  
Selected Invited Lectures

  1. Autonomous Boolean modeling of gene regulatory networks, May 07, 2012, Mathematical Biosciences Institute, Ohio State U. [html]    
  2. Hierarchical freezing in a limit-periodic structure, October 15, 2011, Princeton Center for Theoretical Science    
  3. Periodicity and chaos in delayed Boolean networks, July 19, 2011, ICIAM Conference, Vancouver, Canada    
  4. Relaxation to a limit-periodic ground state, May 23, 2011, Haverford College, Haverford, PA    
  5. Dynamics of Random Networks and Boolean Models, June 28, 2009, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA