With the Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Science and Technology to Young Investigator for playing with sand [press release of the New York Academy of Science, newspaper, pdf, faculty spotlight].
Dr. Makse has made important theoretical contributions to the field of granular materials and allied areas of soft condensed matter physics, with profound implications for the understanding of glasses and other disordered systems. Granular materials are ubiquitous, important for such different materials as pharmaceutical and to the preservation on barrier islands. A major highlight of Makse’s work has been to place the thermodynamics of granular materials on a firm footing. His demonstration of self-similarity in network structures like the internet may have important implications for network security. He is an Associate Professor of Physics at City College of New York, CUNY.