Jasper Vrugt

Jasper Vrugt, Ph.D., studies the dynamics and behavior of natural and/or man-made systems to enhance process understanding and material characterization at different space and time scales and help illuminate tipping points and/or quantify change. Example questions include, why do our theories deviate from data? How can we detect, diagnose, and resolve epistemic errors? How do we quantify uncertainty in models and data? How do we explain the emergent macroscopic behavior of complex systems by micro-scale governing equations? How should we extract information from data? Ultimately, Vrugt's group is trying to understand how complex systems work, operate, behave, calculate and respond to control inputs. The answer to these questions must lie partly in the emergence of a new modeling paradigm, wherein a system’s macroscopic behavior follows logically from microscopic "laws" and generalizations. Publications span the fields of agriculture (irrigation), biogeosciences, computational science, ecology, engineering, geomorphology, geophysics, hydrology, hydropower, soil science and statistics.

Vrugt earned M.S. and Ph.D. degrees (cum laude, 1999 and 2004, respectively) from the University of Amsterdam and has published more than 100 papers in the peer-reviewed literature. He has received accolades and research awards from many different scientific organizations.