Bassler Named as Moores Professor


University-Level Honor Recognizes Outstanding Teaching, Research and Service

UHKevin E. Bassler, professor of physics and mathematics in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM), was named a John and Rebecca Moores Professor at the 2014 University of Houston Faculty Excellence Luncheon.

The Moores Professorship is a five-year renewable award given to faculty who are outstanding in teaching, research and service. The recipient receives a $10,000 annual stipend.

Bassler came to UH in 1998 as a visiting/research assistant professor and joined the faculty in 2000. His research focuses on understanding and identifying the fundamental principles that govern the dynamics of complex systems, especially those structured as complex networks. It has involved a wide range of multidisciplinary topics at the boundary between statistical physics and mathematics, materials science, biology, computer science, social science and finance.

“I am interested in processes of growth, adaptation, self-organization, self-assembly, and evolution,” Bassler said. “My work aims to construct simple models that capture the essence of experimental behavior of a class of systems, and then use them as a basis to understand the common features that underlie their dynamics.”

His work usually involves a combination of analytic calculations and computer simulations.

Bassler has consistently been recognized for his research, scholarship and teaching.

In 2005, he received the University’s Award for Excellence in Research and Scholarship and was the 2003 recipient of NSM’s John C. Butler Excellence in Teaching Award. In 2001, he received a prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship. The two-year Sloan Fellowships are awarded to early-career scientists in the U.S. or Canada in recognition of distinguished performance and a unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field.

- Kathy Major, College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics