lucas-boettcher.info

Welcome.

I am Lucas Böttcher. Below you can find some information about me and my research.

About

Current and Past Positions

Courtesy Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary Systems Medicine, University of Florida, 2023-
Assistant Professor of Computational Science, Frankfurt School of Finance and Management, 2021-
Project Scientist and Visiting Researcher, Applied Mathematics and Computational Medicine, Chou Lab, UCLA, 2020-
Lecturer, Computational Physics at ETH Zürich 2018--2020
Computational Scientist, Simulation and Data Analytics, Leoni, 2018--2019
Postdoctoral researcher, Gersbach group, ETH Zürich, 2018
PhD student, Herrmann group, ETH Zürich, 2015--2018

Applied Mathematics, Complex Systems, Statistical Physics, Data Science, Epidemiology
PhD thesis on Epidemic Processes

Research assistant, Helbing group, ETH Zürich, 2012--2015

Computational Social Science
Simulating epidemic outbreaks and pedestrian dynamics

Intern and project work, Hietschold group, TU Chemnitz, 2008--2011
- Working with AFM, STM, UHV, REM (to study, e.g., flower pollen 1, 2)
- Term paper about graphene, its preparation, and applications, Ardenne Physics Award 2011
Voluntary work, Fortis Saxonia e.V., TU Chemnitz, 2008--2011
- Participation in the Shell Eco Marathon
- Teaching assistance for school groups
Intern, Kobel group, Institute of Particle Physics Dresden, 2008
- Muon lifetime analysis
- Review of the physics masterclasses data

Education (courses)

PhD in physics, Herrmann group, ETH Zürich, 2018
MSc ETH Physics, Dept. of Physics, ETH Zürich, 2015
BSc ETH Physics, Dept. of Physics, ETH Zürich, 2014

Awards

SNF Early Postdoc.Mobility fellowship

Memberships

SIAM, SMB, APS, MIDAS, hessian.AI
Swiss Round Table Antibiotics

Publications

Articles

L. Böttcher, M. R. D'Orsogna, T. Chou, Improving medical decision making through aggregation of repeated tests, preprint
L. Böttcher, L. L. Fonseca, R. C. Laubenbacher, Control of medical digital twins with artificial neural networks, arXiv:2403.13851, biorxiv:2024.03.18.585589, GitLab repo
L. Böttcher, M. A. Porter, Dynamical processes on metric networks, arXiv:2401.00735, GitLab repo
L. L. Fonseca, L. Böttcher, B. Mehrad, R. C. Laubenbacher, Metamodeling and control of medical digital twins, arXiv:2402.05750, GitHub repo
L. Böttcher, T. Chou, M. R. D'Orsogna, Forecasting drug overdose mortality by age in the United States at the national and county levels, PNAS Nexus (2024), arXiv:2309.14452, medRxiv:2023.09.25.23296097
H. Masoomy, T. Chou, L. Böttcher, Impact of random and targeted disruptions on information diffusion during outbreaks, Chaos 33, 033145 (2023), arXiv:2301.00748, GitLab repo
L. Böttcher, M. A. Porter, Complex networks with complex weights, Phys. Rev. E 109, 024314 (2024), arXiv:2212.06257, GitLab repo
L. Böttcher, J. J. F. Breedvelt, F. C. Warren, Z. Segal, W. Kuyken, C. L. H. Bockting, Identifying relapse predictors in individual participant data with decision trees, BMC Psychiatry 23, 835 (2023), PsyArXiv:69ezt
L. Böttcher, G. Wheeler, Visualizing high-dimensional loss landscapes with Hessian directions, J. Stat. Mech. Theory Exp., 023401 (2024), arXiv:2208.13219, GitLab repo
L. Böttcher, T. Chou, M. R. D'Orsogna, Modeling and forecasting age-specific overdose mortality in the United States, Eur. Phys. J. Spec. Top. 232, 1743--1752 (2023), arXiv:2303.16172
L. Böttcher, T. Asikis, Near-optimal control of dynamical systems with neural ordinary differential equations, Mach. Learn.: Sci. Technol. 3, 045004 (2022), arXiv:2206.11120, Gitlab repo
D. Wernli, L. Böttcher, F. Vanackere, Y. Kaspiarovich, M. Massood, N. Levrat, Understanding and governing systemic crises in the 21st century: a review from a complexity perspective, Glob. Policy 14, 207--228 (2023)
L. Böttcher, S. Wald, T. Chou, Mathematical characterization of private and public immune repertoire sequences, Bull. Math. Biol. 85, 102 (2023), arXiv:2205.08750, biorxiv:2022.05.17.492232, Gitlab repo
M. R. D'Orsogna, L. Böttcher, T. Chou, Fentanyl-driven acceleration of racial, gender and geographical disparities in drug overdose deaths in the United States, PLOS Glob. Public Health 3, e0000769 (2023), medRxiv:2022.06.22.22276766
M. Xia, L. Böttcher, T. Chou, Spectrally adapted physics-informed neural networks for solving unbounded domain problems, Mach. Learn.: Sci. Technol. 4, 025024 (2023), arXiv:2202.02710, Gitlab repo
L. Böttcher, T. Asikis, I. Fragkos, Control of dual-sourcing inventory systems using recurrent neural networks, INFORMS J. Comput. 35, 1308--1328 (2023), arXiv:2201.06126, IJoC GitHub repo
N. Antulov-Fantulin, L. Böttcher, On the accuracy of short-term COVID-19 fatality forecasts, BMC Infect. Dis. 22, 251 (2022), arXiv:2107.09891, GitHub repo
L. Böttcher, H. Gersbach, D. Wernli, Restoring the antibiotic R&D market to combat the resistance crisis, Sci. Public Policy 49, 127--131 (2022)
M. Xia, L. Böttcher, T. Chou, Controlling epidemics through optimal allocation of test kits and vaccine doses across networks, IEEE Trans. Netw. Sci. Eng. 9, 1422--1436 (2022), arXiv:2107.13709, GitLab repo
T. Schneider, O. R. A. Dunbar, J. Wu, L. Böttcher, D. Burov, A. Garbuno-Inigo, G. L. Wagner, S. Pei, C. Daraio, R. Ferrari, J. Shaman, Epidemic management and control through individual risk-tailored contact interventions, PLOS Comp. Biol. 18, e1010171 (2022), arXiv:2109.10970, GitHub repo
L. Böttcher, N. Antulov-Fantulin, T. Asikis, AI Pontryagin or how artificial neural networks learn to control dynamical systems, Nat. Commun. 13, 333 (2022), arXiv:2103.06525, GitHub repo
L. Böttcher, M. R. D'Orsogna, T. Chou, A statistical model of COVID-19 testing in populations: effects of sampling bias and testing errors, Philos. Trans. Royal Soc. A 380, 20210121 (2021), medRxiv:2021.05.22.21257643, arXiv:2105.11961, GitHub repo
L. Böttcher, J. Nagler, Decisive conditions for strategic vaccination against SARS-CoV-2, Chaos 31, 101105 (2021), medRxiv:2021.03.05.21252962, GitHub repo
L. Böttcher, G. Kernell, Examining the limits of the Condorcet Jury Theorem: Tradeoffs in hierarchical information aggregation systems, Collect. Intell. 1, 1--16 (2022), arXiv:2110.02298
D. Wernli, M. Clausin, N. Antulov-Fantulin, J. Berezowski, N. Biller, K. Blanchet, L. Böttcher, C. Burton-Jeangros, G. Escher, A. Flahault, K. Fukuda, D. Helbing, P. D. Jaffé, P. S. Jørgensen, Y. Kaspiarovich, J. Krishnakumar, J. Berezowski, R. J. Lawrence, K. Lee, A. Léger, N. Levrat, R. Martischang, C. M. Morel, D. Pittet, M. Stauffer, F. Tediosi, F. Vanackere, J.-D. Vassalli, G. Wolff, O. Young, Building a multisystemic understanding of societal resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic, BMJ Glob. Health 6, e006794 (2021)
L. Böttcher, M. R. D'Orsogna, T. Chou, Using excess deaths and testing statistics to determine estimates of COVID-19 mortalities, Eur. J. Epidemiol. 36, 545--558 (2021), medRxiv:2021.01.10.21249524, arXiv:2101.03467, GitHub repo
L. Böttcher, M. A. Porter, Classical and quantum random-walk centrality measures in multilayer networks, SIAM J. Appl. Math. 81, 2704--2724 (2021), arXiv:2012.07157, Gitlab repo
S. Wald, L. Böttcher, From classical to quantum walks with stochastic resetting on networks, Phys. Rev. E 103, 012122 (2021), arXiv:2008.00510, GitHub repo
T. Asikis, L. Böttcher, N. Antulov-Fantulin, Neural ordinary differential equation control of dynamics on graphs, Phys. Rev. Res. 4, 013221 (2022), arXiv:2006.09773, GitHub repo
P. Richter, M. Henkel, L. Böttcher, Aging and equilibration in bistable contagion dynamics, Phys. Rev. E 102, 042308 (2020), arXiv:2006.05937
S.D.S. Reis, L. Böttcher, J.P. da C. Nogueira, G.S. Sousa, A.S. Lima Neto, H.J. Herrmann, J.S. Andrade Jr, Spatio-temporal characteristics of dengue outbreaks, Front. Phys. 10, 923099 (2022), arXiv:2006.02646
L. Böttcher, M. Xia, T. Chou, Why case fatality ratios can be misleading: individual- and population-based mortality estimates and factors influencing them, Phys. Biol. 17, 065003 (2020), arXiv:2003.12032, medRxiv:2020.03.26.20044693
L. Böttcher, N. Antulov-Fantulin, Unifying continuous, discrete, and susceptible-infected-recovered processes on networks, Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 033121 (2020), arXiv:2002.11765
L. Böttcher, H. Gersbach, A refunding scheme to incentivize narrow-spectrum antibiotic development, Bull. Math. Biol. 84, 59 (2022), arXiv:2007.06468, medRxiv:2020.07.13.20152652, CEPR:DP15512
F. D'Angelo, L. Böttcher, Learning the Ising model with generative neural networks, Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 023266 (2020), arXiv:2001.05361, GitHub repo
L. Böttcher, A random-line-graph approach to overlapping line segments, J. Complex Netw. 8, cnaa029 (2020), arXiv:1911.10679
S. Nauer, L. Böttcher, M. A. Porter, Random-graph models and characterization of granular networks, J. Complex Netw. 8, cnz037 (2019), arXiv:1907.13424
S. Xu, L. Böttcher, T. Chou, Diversity in biology: definitions, quantification, and models, Phys. Biol. 17, 031001 (2020), arXiv:1908.08190
L. Böttcher, H. Gersbach, The great divide: Quantifying drivers of polarization in the US public, EPJ Data Sci. 9, 32 (2020), arXiv:2001.05163, GitLab repo
L. Böttcher, P. Montealegre, E. Goles, H. Gersbach, Competing activists--political polarization, Physica A 545, 123713 (2019), arXiv:1910.14531
S. Strub, L. Böttcher, Modeling deformed transmission lines for continuous strain sensing applications, Meas. Sci. Technol. 31, 035109 (2019), arXiv:1912.13319
M. Hoferer, L. Böttcher, H.J. Herrmann, H. Gersbach, The impact of technologies in political campaigns, Physica A 538, 122795 (2019), arXiv:1909.07644
L. Böttcher, H.J. Herrmann, H. Gersbach, Clout, activists and budget: The road to presidency, PLOS One 13(3):e0193199. (2018), arXiv:1802.02048
L. Böttcher, H.J. Herrmann, M. Henkel, Dynamical universality of the contact process, J. Phys. A 51, 125003 (2018), arXiv:1802.00037
L. Böttcher, J. S. Andrade Jr., H.J. Herrmann, Targeted recovery as an effective strategy against epidemic spreading, Sci. Rep. 7, 14356 (2017), arXiv:1710.05807
L. Böttcher, J. Nagler, H.J. Herrmann, Critical behaviors in contagion dynamics, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 088301 (2017), arXiv:1701.08988, GitHub repo
L. Böttcher, O. Woolley-Meza, D. Brockmann, Temporal dynamics of online petitions, PLOS One 12(5):e0178062. (2017), arXiv:1705.04202
L. Böttcher, M. Lukovic, J. Nagler, S. Havlin, H.J. Herrmann, Failure and recovery in dynamical networks, Sci. Rep. 7, 41729 (2017), arXiv:1610.00997
L. Böttcher, O. Woolley-Meza, E. Goles, D. Helbing, H.J. Herrmann, Connectivity disruption sparks explosive epidemic spreading, Phys. Rev. E 93, 042315 (2016), arXiv:1604.07783
L. Böttcher, N.A.M. Araújo, J. Nagler, J.F.F. Mendes, D. Helbing, H.J. Herrmann, Gender gap in the ERASMUS mobility program, PLOS One 11(2):e0149514. (2016), arXiv:1602.01442
L. Böttcher, O. Woolley-Meza, N.A.M. Araújo, H.J. Herrmann, D. Helbing, Disease-induced resource constraints can trigger explosive epidemics, Sci. Rep. 5, 16571 (2015), arXiv:1508.05484, ssrn.2496128
R. Mani, L. Böttcher, H.J. Herrmann, D. Helbing, Extreme power law in a driven many-particle system without threshold dynamics, Phys. Rev. E 90, 042201 (2014), arXiv:1404.7460

Books, chapters, conference proceedings, and other scholarship

L. Böttcher, G. Wheeler, Statistical mechanics and artificial neural networks: principles, models, and applications. In Yurij Holovatch (Ed.), Order, Disorder and Criticality: Advanced Problems of Phase Transition Theory 8 (2024)
H. Gersbach, L. Böttcher New incentives for antibiotics research and development, KOF Bulletin, No. 175, July (2023)
L. Böttcher, Gradient-free training of neural ODEs for system identification and control using ensemble Kalman inversion, ICML Workshop on New Frontiers in Learning, Control, and Dynamical Systems at the International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML), Honolulu, Hawaii, USA (2023), arXiv:2307.07882
L. Böttcher, Contagion dynamics in complex networks. In Andrew Adamatzky (Ed.) Automata and Complexity: Essays Presented to Eric Goles on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday (Emergence, Complexity and Computation 42), 75--82 (2022)
L. Böttcher, H. Gersbach, Tax drugs to fight bugs (edited by John A. Whitfield), Research Europe (2022)
D. Wernli, N. Antulov-Fantulin, J. Berezowski, N. Biller, K. Blanchet, L. Böttcher, C. Burton-Jeangros, M. Clausin, G. Escher, A. Flahault, K. Fukuda, D. Helbing, P. D. Jaffé, P. S. Jørgensen, Y. Kaspiarovich, J. Krishnakumar, J. Berezowski, R. J. Lawrence, K. Lee, A. Léger, N. Levrat, R. Martischang, C. M. Morel, D. Pittet, M. Stauffer, F. Tediosi, F. Vanackere, J.-D. Vassalli, G. Wolff, O. Young, Governance in the age of complexity: building resilience to COVID-19 and future pandemics (2021)
L. Böttcher, H.J. Herrmann, Computational Statistical Physics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom (2021)

Media coverage and highlights

Our work on the US fentanyl epidemic covered by The Economist
Summary article of our work on neural-network controllers by NCCR Automation
Comment on our work on antibiotic resistance in Blick
Guest comment on antibiotic resistance for NZZ
UCLA news and several other news outles covered our work on the opioid epidemic in the US
Summary of our work on data assimilation and epidemic management by ScienceDaily, SCIENMAG, Caltech news
Summary of our work on controlling dynamical systems and supply chains with artificial neural networks by Süddeutsche Zeitung
Controlling complex systems with artificial neural networks: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10
COVID-19 Vaccination Strategies: When Is One Dose Better Than Two? (press release also available here)
Study examines decisive conditions for single or double dose COVID-19 vaccination strategies
Some more press coverage on our research on COVID-19 excess mortality: #1, #2, #3, #4
Summary of our preprint on COVID-19 excess mortality by the Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness, University of Washington
Our article Critical Behaviors in Contagion Dynamics is part of the APS Coronavirus (COVID-19) Collection
Are COVID-19 Mortality Rates Really What They Seem?, AirTalk 89.3 KPCC, UCLA newsroom
Understanding the dynamics of the epidemic, ETH news
Italy's Coronavirus Death Toll Is Far Higher Than Reported, available on WSJ online or MSN
Our article on student mobility flows was mentioned in an EU Policy Study

You can find more information about my research and teaching (incl. planned workshops/conferences and job postings) on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Teaching

Year	Courses
2023 --	Numerical Analysis of Dynamical Systems	Machine Learning	Computational Statistics	Introduction to Data Analytics
2022	Numerical Analysis of Dynamical Systems	Machine Learning	Introduction to Data Analytics
2021	Introduction to Data Analytics
2020	Epidemic Forecasting	Data Assimilation in Complex Social Systems
2019	Introduction to Computational Physics	Computational Statistical Physics	Dynamical Processes in Complex Networks
2018	Mathematik III
2017	Numerische Methoden