Prof. Shlomo Havlin is a Professor in the Physics Department at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. He has carried out fundamental research in applications of statistical physics to areas such as complex networks, infrastructure resilience, social networks, geophysics, climate, medicine, biology, and others. Most recently, he has focused on interdependence between infrastructure networks such as the power grid and communications network; and novel methods for understanding traffic congestion in urban settings. Havlin has published over 750 scientific papers and is among the two most cited scientists in Israel (in 2018) with over 80,000 citations and an h-index of 128 (Google Scholar). For his research achievements, he has been awarded the Lilienfeld Prize from the American Physical Society (2010), the Rothschild Prize (2014), the Order of the Star of Italy (2017), and most recently, the Israel Prize (2018).

Conducting research at WRHI provides me with the opportunity to collaborate with the excellent Japanese researchers who work there on the topics of rumor propagation in social networks, traffic, and finance. These interactions enable us to develop new approaches to projects and combine our complementary skills to achieve novel discoveries.