Yang Yang

Postdoc

Bio

I received my bachelor on Physics and Mathematics, from Tsinghua University (Beijing) on 2010. I joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and got my PhD on 2016.

In my PhD research, I study the fundamental principles of collective behaviors in different complex systems. One line of my research concerns the comprehensive determination of the state of the system from limited measurements. In another line of research, I focus on the realistic simulation of cascading failures in real power-grid networks and modeling cascades using Hamiltonian systems.

I am pursuing research on better understanding of emergent patterns in a broader context of complex systems, including the contagion dynamic in financial systems, the propagation of innovations in social networks, and science of science.

Education

• B. A. Mathematics and Physics, Tsinghua University (2010)
• Ph. D. Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University (2016)

Awards and Honors

• Best Graduate Speaker Award, American Physics Society, Group on Statistical and Nonlinear Physics (2016)