Kurths studied mathematics at the University of Rostock and was awarded his PhD in 1983 at the GDR Academy of Sciences, followed by his installation in 1991 in theoretical physics at the University of Rostock. In 1991, in a special program of the Max-Planck-Society, he was selected as one of a few scientists from East Germany to become a director of a new working group and he has formed an internationally well-known group on nonlinear dynamics. In 1994 he got a full-chair on theoretical physics/nonlinear dynamics at the University of Potsdam. There he was also Dean of the Science Faculty, and established as the founding director the Interdisciplinary Centre for Dynamics of Complex Systems. He was the founding director of the Leibniz-Kolleg Potsdam. In 2008, he was called to re-create the research domain Transdisciplinary Concepts at PIK and to bring complex systems perspectives into Earth system research and has become a Professor of Nonlinear Dynamics at the Institute of Physics at the Humboldt University, Berlin, and in 2009 a 6th-century chair for Complex Systems Biology at the Institute for Complex Systems and Mathematical Biology at Kings College, Aberdeen University.
Research impact
From time series analysis and its application to solar and stellar activity phenomena, his interest was drawn in the 1980s to complex systems and nonlinearity or chaos theory. Kurths has been noted especially for his seminal contributions to new synchronization phenomena, recurrence, coherence resonance, measures of complexity and causality as well as dynamics and stability of complex networks. This is what later led him to do research on the basics of complex systems theory as well as applications to the Earth system, the human brain, the cardio-respiratory system and other systems which are characterised by a high degree of complexity and nonlinearity. Kurths maintains a large network of scientific collaborators and he has had more than 60 PhD students from about 20 countries, 30 of whom now have tenured positions in various countries. He published more 1000 articles and eight books. He is currently on the editorial board of more than 10 scientific journals, among them Chaos, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, PLOS One, European Journal of Physics, J. Nonlinear Science and Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics and of the Springer Series Complexity.
International scientific activities
Kurths has been a leader in many international scientific activities, including the presidency of the EGU Nonlinear Processes in Geosciences Division. His efforts to promote international collaboration led him to organise several large projects in the EU and DFG and to become the speaker of an International Research Training Group on complex networks since 2011.
