Huafeng Xie / Physics

Graduate Student Researcher
2002 – 2007hxie1@gradcenter.cuny.edu

I am currently a physics Ph.D. candidate at the Graduate Center of CUNY and part-time faculty at Queens College. After graduating from the University of Science and Technology of China in 2000, I came to the physics department of the Graduate Center.

As a physics student, I enjoy detecting and solving problems, and have a broad range of interests, including computer, music, art, media, etc. So the idea of choosing an interdisciplinary project as my thesis project is always borne in my mind. Luckily, I met my advisor Professor Brian Schwartz and then was introduced to the New Media Lab. I was so amazed by the creative ideas, the innovative methods and the beautiful outcome of collaborations of physics and art, physics and traffic, physics and finance, etc. I worked on the Physics of Traffic project for a while and helped in the ArtSci 2002 Symposium after I joined the New Media Lab. My current research is on complex networks. Complex networks are one of the most promising tools to describe a wide range of physical, social, biological, and artificial systems. The statistical mechanics of the topological properties and dynamics of complex networks has attracted much interest from scientists and the understanding of the systems has progressed rapidly. I’m currently working on the structure and effects of the communities in a network.