Affiliation

Alex Arenas is Full Professor at Computer Science & Mathematics Dept., Universitat Rovira i Virgili.

Primary Research Focus

Methodological development and analysis of networks of interactions in socio-technical systems. Currently, his research focuses on processes that take place in so-called multiplex networks (those where agents are interconnected in different ways) and interconnected ones. Among its multiple applications, he is interested in smart cities.

Contribution

Alex Arenas has a vast record on studying socio-technical networks, and studying the development of processes of diffusion and spreading on them. He has devised a ranking scheme that unveils versatile elements within multiplex networks; this property crucially determines their importance in diffusion phenomena. He has also contributed methodological tools that allow to characterize the efficiency of exploration and spreading in multiplex networks.

Exemplary paper:

De Domenico, M., Solé-Ribalta, A., Gómez, S., & Arenas, A. (2014). Navigability of interconnected networks under random failures. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(23), 8351–6. doi:10.1073/pnas.1318469111

De Domenico, M., Solé-Ribalta, A., Omodei, E., Gómez, S., & Arenas, A. (2015). Ranking in interconnected multilayer networks reveals versatile nodes. Nature Communications, 6, 6868. doi:10.1038/ncomms7868

The papers are available here.

Education

Professor Arenas received both his undergraduate and graduate degrees from the Universitat de Barcelona. He has also been visiting researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab (University of California).

Publications

Professor Arenas has more that 150 publications. He has published his research in journals such as Nature, Nature Communications, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Nature Physics, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review E, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization, among others.

Awards

Professor Arenas’s research has won a number of awards, including the ICREA Academia. He is and has been active in several EU funded projects (like Multiplex) and has been sponsored by the James S. McDonnell Foundation for researching on “Multilevel analysis of complex networked systems”.

Misc.

Professor Arenas serves on the editorial board of Physical Review E.