Dr Lucas Lacasa, from the School of Mathematical Sciences, has won the prestigious Universal Scientific Education and Research Network (USERN) prize in Formal Sciences for his work to develop new methods for data analysis.
Dr Lucas Lucasa
Dr Lacasa’s research focuses on connecting two distinct areas of applied mathematics, time series analysis and network science, to improve our ability to extract information from large, complex datasets.
Dr Lacasa, said: “I’m very honoured to receive the USERN prize for this work. I’d like to acknowledge all my co-authors who have contributed to this research so far, and thank the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for their support and funding via an Early Career Fellowship.
“With increases in computational capacity we can now run large scale simulations that generate huge amounts of data and it’s critical that we develop new methods that can handle and interpret this information.
“My research explores how new mathematical approaches could simplify analysis and help us to uncover more information from big data.”
The USERN prize is awarded to scientists and researchers under 40 for novel advances or achievements in scientific education or research that will impact wider society.
Applicants are reviewed and scored by an international jury composed of Nobel laureates and other world-leading scientists.
Dr Lacasa, said: “We hope the new methods we develop through this research will help humanity to cope with scientific problems the world is currently facing, from climate change to neuroscience.
“We’re already collaborating with both climate scientists and neuroscientists to better understand their data and provide novel insights that will help to extract valuable information from it.”
Winners of the awards were announced at the 4th International USERN Congress in Budapest on 8 November 2019.
For more on the USERN prize see here
Learn more about research at the School of Mathematical Sciences