Prof. Kevin Bassler received an award of $300,000 from the National Science Foundation that supports his theoretical research and education on the statistical physics of complex network dynamics. Prof. Bassler aims to answer fundamental questions about emergent behavior in condensed matter and biological systems. These studies will advance the understanding of complex interacting systems. Applications include processes on physical networks, such as city traffic and the Internet, on social networks, such as influence spreading and epidemics, and on biological networks, such as gene regulation. This award contributes to multi-disciplinary efforts at the University of Houston in both Computational and Network Science. The research will be done collaboratively with a diverse, international group of theorists and experimentalists.