Viola Priesemann

Prof. Viola Priesemann is a physicist and neuroscientist at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-organization and University of Göttingen (W3 Professorship, 20% position). Her research spans self-organization in adaptive networks across neural and societal scales, with applications to neural criticality, information processing, and COVID-19 pandemic dynamics. She leads an independent Max Planck Research Group since 2017 and has held affiliations with Caltech, MPI Brain Research, and Bernstein Center Göttingen.

Her research combines statistical physics, information theory, and non-equilibrium systems to study:

• Self-organized criticality in brain networks
• Subsampling theory for large-scale systems
• Neural basis of curiosity and learning
• Test-trace-isolation strategies for epidemics
• Information spread in social networks
• Design of energy-efficient AI architectures

Key scientific awards include:

• Communitas Award (Max Planck Society, 2021)
• Science award of Lower-Saxony (2021)
• Medaille für naturwissenschaftliche Publizistik (DPG, 2021)
• Young Scientist Award (DPG, 2024)

Her work on cross-scale information flow has influenced both neuroscience and public health policy, including advisory roles in the German government's COVID-19 expert panel.