Holmes, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, emeritus, was elected for “the application of methods of nonlinear analysis and chaotic dynamics to engineering systems.” He developed foundational mathematical tools to analyze and predict the behavior of chaotic systems. He has applied these tools to study real-world problems including turbulence, animal movement, and brain and nervous system functions. He co-authored four textbooks on dynamical systems, chaos theory, and complex 3D flows. His 1983 textbook, “Nonlinear Oscillations, Dynamical Systems, and Bifurcations of Vector Fields,” co-authored with John Guckenheimer, is considered a landmark work for studying the behavior of complex systems across scientific disciplines.
Holmes directed Princeton’s Program in Applied Computational Mathematics from 1994 to 1997 and again in 2010 and 2011. Read More by the The Office of Engineering Communications