Martin Andreas Nowak (born April 7, 1965) is an Austrian-born professor of mathematics and biology at Harvard University. He is one of the leading researchers in evolutionary dynamics. Nowak has made contributions to the fields of evolutionary theory, cooperation, viral dynamics, and cancer dynamics.

Nowak held professorships at Oxford University and at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, before being recruited by Harvard in 2003 when Jeffrey Epstein donated a large sum of money to support Nowak's work and set up a center for studying cooperation in evolution. Nowak was the director of Harvard's resulting Program for Evolutionary Dynamics (PED) from 2003 until 2020, when he was disciplined by being suspended from supervising undergraduate research for two years and having his institute permanently closed down as a punishment for having provided an office, keycard, and passcode, and for allowing Epstein free and unlimited access to PED for over ten years after his conviction for sex crimes.

Martin Nowak is famous for his extensive contributions to various scientific disciplines, including evolutionary game theory, virology, cancer dynamics, and the evolution of cooperation. Throughout his career, Nowak has collaborated with notable figures such as Robert May, Karl Sigmund, and John Maynard Smith. His work spans a wide range of topics, from the somatic evolution of cancer to the origins of language and prelife. Nowak has authored over 300 scientific publications, including many contributions to Nature and Science.

Aside from his scientific career, Nowak has also authored five books. His 2006 work Evolutionary Dynamics received praise for its unique perspective on theoretical biology and won the R.R. Hawkins Award. In 2011, he co-authored SuperCooperators, which argues for cooperation as a fundamental principle of evolution, garnering positive reviews. Additionally, Nowak has edited books, including Evolution, Games, and God, which examines the relationship between theology and evolutionary theory. He has received numerous awards for his contributions to science, including the Weldon Memorial Prize, the Albert Wander Prize, the Akira Okubo Prize, the David Starr Jordan Prize and the Henry Dale Prize. Nowak identifies as a Roman Catholic, advocating for the compatibility of science and religion in the pursuit of truth. His 2024 book, Beyond, is a poetic exploration of the connection between religion and science. In 2015, he received the honorary degree Doctor of Humane Letters from the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology at Berkeley.

Early life and education

Nowak was born in Vienna, Austria. He studied at Albertus Magnus Gymnasium and the University of Vienna, earning a doctorate in biochemistry and mathematics in 1989. He worked with Peter Schuster on quasi-species theory and with Karl Sigmund on evolution of cooperation. Nowak received the highest Austrian honors (Sub auspiciis Praesidentis) when awarded his degree. In 1993, he received his "Habilitation" at the Institute of Mathematics at the University of Vienna. In 2001, he was elected into the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Career

From 1989 to 1998, Nowak worked at the University of Oxford with Robert May. First, he was an Erwin Schrödinger postdoctoral Scholar, then a Junior Research Fellow at Wolfson College, then a Junior Research Fellow at Keble College. From 1992, he was a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow. From 1997 to 1998, Nowak was a professor of mathematical biology.

In 1998, Martin Nowak was recruited by the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

He was Head of the Institute's first Initiative in Theoretical Biology from 1998 until 2003.

In 2003, Nowak was recruited to Harvard University as Professor of Mathematics and Biology. Nowak was also co-director with Sarah Coakley of the Evolution and Theology of Cooperation project at Harvard University, sponsored by the Templeton Foundation, where he was also a member of their Board of Advisers. He was appointed Director of the Program for Evolutionary Dynamics (PED). The PED was funded with a large sum of money from the Jeffrey Epstein VI Foundation. In 2003, Epstein had introduced himself as a science philanthropist cementing the initial interaction with a large donation to Harvard. Scientific American reported that Nowak's team received US$6.5 million initially, with nothing released to him after 2007, a couple of hundred thousand dollars remained unspent.

After Epstein's 2008 conviction, Harvard president Drew Faust decided that the university would no longer accept his donations. A report commissioned by the university found that Nowak allowed Epstein to visit the PED offices more than 40 times after his conviction, to maintain an office with a phone line and webpage, and to interact with students at PED. In 2020, the university placed Nowak on paid academic leave for violation of campus policies including professional conduct and campus access. In 2021, Harvard decided a proportionate response to the severity of Nowak's failure to follow Harvard policies was to close the institute founded with Epstein's money, to donate the money remaining to a foundation helping victims of sexual assaults, and to impose a two year ban on Nowak supervising undergraduate research, serving as the principal investigator of new grants, and supervising new graduate students or postdoctoral fellows. Nowak said he would "take the lessons from this time with me as I move forward". The sanctions against Nowak were lifted in 2023.

Academic research

Nowak has authored books and scientific papers on topics in evolutionary game theory, cancer, viruses, infectious disease, the evolution of language, and the evolution of cooperation. At Oxford, he helped to establish the fields of virus dynamics and spatial games (which later became evolutionary graph theory). He continued his collaboration with Karl Sigmund in game theory, proposing generous tit-for-tat and win-stay, lose-shift, inventing adaptive dynamics, alternating games and indirect reciprocity. He collaborated with John Maynard Smith on genetic redundancy, with Baruch Blumberg on hepatitis B virus, with George Shaw and Andrew McMichael on HIV. He worked with Robert May on evolution of virulence.

In 1990, Nowak and Robert May proposed a mathematical model which explained the puzzling delay between HIV infection and AIDS in terms of the evolution of different strains of the virus during individual infections, to the point where the genetic diversity of the virus reaches a threshold whereby the immune system can no longer control it. This detailed quantitative approach depended on assumptions about the biology of HIV which were subsequently confirmed by experiment.

At Harvard, Nowak continued his work on virus dynamics, cancer dynamics, and evolutionary game theory. In 2004, he established evolutionary game dynamics in finite populations. In 2005 and 2006 he wrote key papers establishing evolutionary graph theory.In 2006, he suggested that cooperation was a third fundamental principle of evolution beside mutation and selection. In 2007, he proposed prelife - a theory for the origin of life. In 2008 and 2009 he suggested that positive interaction, but not punishment, promotes evolution of cooperation.

In a paper in Science in 2006, Nowak enunciated and unified the mathematical rules for the five understood bases of the evolution of cooperation (kin selection, direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, network reciprocity, and group selection). Nowak suggests that evolution is constructive because of cooperation, and that we might add “natural cooperation” as a third fundamental principle of evolution beside mutation and natural selection.

In a paper featured on the front cover of Nature in 2007, Nowak and colleagues demonstrated that the transition of irregular verbs to regular verbs in English over time obeys a simple inverse-square law, thus providing one of the first quantitative laws in the evolution of language.

In 2010 a paper by Nowak, E. O. Wilson, and Corina Tarnita, in Nature, argued that standard natural selection theory represents a simpler and superior approach to kin selection theory in the evolution of eusociality. This work has led to many comments including strong criticism from proponents of inclusive fitness theory. Nowak maintains that the findings of the paper are conclusive and that the field of social evolution should move beyond inclusive fitness theory.

He has over 300 scientific publications, of which 40 are in Nature and 15 in Science.

Nowak's research interests include:

• Somatic evolution of cancer, genetic instability, tumor suppressor genes
• Stem cells, tissue architecture
• Viruses, infectious diseases, immunology
• Dynamics of prion infections
• Quasispecies
• Genetic redundancy
• Evolution of language
• Evolutionary game theory
• Evolutionary graph theory
• Evolution of cooperation
• Prelife and origins of life

Published books

Nowak's first book Virus Dynamics: Mathematical Principles of Immunology and Virology, written with Robert May, was published by Oxford University Press in 2001. Nowak's 2006 book Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life discusses the evolution of various biological processes. Reviewing Evolutionary Dynamics in Nature, Sean Nee called it a "unique book" that "should be on the shelf of anyone who has, or thinks they might have, an interest in theoretical biology." The book received the Association of American Publishers' R.R. Hawkins Award for the Outstanding Professional, Reference or Scholarly Work of 2006.

Nowak's book SuperCooperators: The Mathematics of Evolution, Altruism and Human Behaviour (Or, Why We Need Each Other to Succeed), co-authored with Roger Highfield, was published in 2011. SuperCooperators is both an autobiography of Nowak and a popular presentation of his work in mathematical biology on the evolution of cooperation, the origin of life, and the evolution of language. In the book, Nowak argues that cooperation is the third fundamental principle of evolution, next to mutation and natural selection. SuperCooperators received positive reviews in The New York Times, Nature, and the Financial Times.

With Sarah Coakley, Nowak edited the 2013 book Evolution, Games, and God: The Principle of Cooperation, published by Harvard University Press. The volume features articles from experts in multiple fields who explore the interplay between theology and evolutionary theory as pertaining to cooperation and altruism.

Awards

Nowak is a corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He won the Weldon Memorial Prize, the Albert Wander Prize, the Akira Okubo Prize, the David Starr Jordan Prize and the Henry Dale Prize.

Personal life

Nowak is a Roman Catholic. In a 2007 lecture at Harvard, he argued that science and religion occupied different but complementary roles in humans' search for meaning, stating: "Science and religion are two essential components in the search for truth. Denying either is a barren approach."