Professor Newman's interests are in statistical physics and the theory of complex systems. One focus of Professor Newman's research is networked systems, including social and biological networks and computer networks, which are studied using a combination of empirical methods, analysis, and computer simulation. He is funded by the National Science Foundation to investigate questions of network structure, such as who knows whom in a community, how contact networks form, and how structure affects the diffusion of information over networks. He has carried out empirical work on the collaboration networks of scientists and business-people, and developed computer simulations of the growth and formation of networks and the processes taking place on them. He is funded by the McDonnell Foundation to study the spread of infection through networks, and has developed mathematical models of network epidemics and in particular the spread of computer viruses over email networks. Other current projects include work on mixing patterns within networks, network correlations, network navigation algorithms and distributed databases, and phase transitions in network structure.

The other principle focus of Professor Newman's current research is percolation theory. Jointly with UM Engineering Professor Robert M. Ziff, he is the inventor of a high-performance computer algorithm used for simulating percolation systems. Professor Newman has published a number of large-scale numerical studies of percolation problems, particularly addressing scaling and critical phenomena. He has confirmed, in many cases for the first time, a variety of theoretical conjectures about percolation models.

Professor Newman is the author of three books, including texts on the renormalization group method in statistical mechanics and on Monte Carlo simulations.

The Structure and Function of Complex Networks, (M.E.J. Newman), SIAM Review 45, 167-256 (2003).

Community Structure in Social and Biological Networks, (M. Girvan and M.E.J. Newman), Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99, 8271-8276 (2002).

The Structure of Scientific Collaboration Networks, (M.E.J. Newman), Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 98, 404-409 (2001).

Efficient Monte Carlo Algorithm and High-Precision Results for Percolation, (M.E.J. Newman and R. M. Ziff), Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 4104-4107 (2000).

Monte Carlo Methods in Statistical Physics, (M.E.J. Newman and G.T. Barkema), Oxford University Press (1999).