Chaos Announces 2024 Edward N. Lorenz Early Career Award Winners

MELVILLE, N.Y., Dec. 3, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Chaos, published by AIP Publishing, is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024 Edward N. Lorenz Early Career Award, honoring outstanding early-career researchers whose work has made a significant contribution to the nonlinear-science community. This year's awardees are Rahil Valani, Adam Giammarese, Mirko Goldmann, and Guillaume Pourcel.

"Awarding these bright researchers underscores our commitment to spotlighting the next generation of leaders in nonlinear dynamics," said Jürgen Kurths, Editor-in-Chief, Chaos.

Award Recipients & Highlights

Rahil Valani – University of Oxford, UK
Dr. Valani, a Leverhulme-Peierls Fellow at Oxford's Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, studies the deep connections between nonlinear dynamics, active matter, and wave-particle behavior. His award-winning paper, "Infinite-memory classical wave-particle entities, attractor-driven active particles and the diffusionless Lorenz equations" (DOI: 10.1063/5.0171007), shows how classical wave-particle entities in a high-memory regime can be mapped onto diffusionless Lorenz equations. This work reveals that self-propelled particles interacting with their self-generated waves can reproduce attractor-driven dynamics reminiscent of chaotic systems, highlighting powerful analogies between active matter and classical chaos.

Adam Giammarese – Numerical Advisory Solutions, USA
Dr. Giammarese, a Staff Engineer at Numerical Advisory Solutions, brings together mathematical modelling, complex networks, and climate analysis in his research. His award-winning paper, "Reconfiguration of Amazon's connectivity in the climate system" (DOI: 10.1063/5.0165861), uses climate-network methods to show that the Amazon rainforest is undergoing a structural shift in its climate connectivity—weakening local ties while strengthening long-range ones. This reorganization offers a network-level signature of changing climate dynamics in the region and provides a new lens for understanding emerging risks and tipping-point behavior.

Mirko Goldmann – Akhetonics, Germany

Guillaume Pourcel, University of Groningen, Netherlands
Collaborating through the European POST-DIGITAL ETN Project, Dr. Goldmann and Dr. Pourcel explore the intersection of nonlinear dynamics, neuromorphic computing, and machine-learning theory. Their award-winning paper, "Adaptive control of recurrent neural networks using conceptors" (DOI: 10.1063/5.0211692), introduces a mechanism that allows recurrent neural networks to remain adaptive even after training. By embedding a conceptor-based control loop, they demonstrate that RNNs can better interpolate temporal patterns and maintain functionality despite distortions or partial hardware degradation—advancing the design of robust, dynamic computational systems.

The Edward N. Lorenz Early Career Award recognizes exceptional research by authors in the early stages of their careers who publish in Chaos. Eligible candidates must be within eight years of receiving a master's degree, five years of receiving a Ph.D., or be a current student, and must be the first author on a Chaos paper published during the award year.

To learn more about the Edward N. Lorenz Early Career Award and past winners, visit: https://pubs.aip.org/aip/cha/pages/award.

About AIP Publishing

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SOURCE AIP Publishing