Professor Rodgers was appointed to Brunel University London in 1989 as a lecturer in Physics, becoming a Reader in Mathematical Physics in 2001 and Professor of Theoretical Physics in 2003. In 2004 he joined the Brunel Graduate School and was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research in 2008. In 2013 he was appointed as Vice-Principal (Research).
Professor Rodgers gained his BSc in Mathematics at Imperial College London and a PhD in Disordered System Theory at Manchester University.
In 1988 he won a European Postdoctoral Fellowship from The Royal Society to work with Professors Cyrano De Dominicis and Bernard Derrida at the Service de Physique Théorique, CEN-Saclay, France.
Professor Rodgers has an impressive research record, with many publications, conference presentations and grants to his name. His particular interests lie in the fields of complex networks and the application of statistical mechanics to problems in social science, economics and finance.
His most recent major grant success was the €1.8M NET-ACE (Network Theory and Applications to Computing and Engineering) Marie Curie Early Stage Training Site which he won in 2005 from the European Commission.
As well as supervising many PhD students, he has extensive experience in a very broad range of administrative and academic roles including major involvement in quality and standards issues, managing postgraduate bursaries and scholarships for the University and acting as undergraduate admissions tutor.
The main responsibility of his role is to lead the University in the next stage of its research development, and ensure that it sustains a diverse and evolving, vibrant, research community.
He has championed the introduction of the open access archive BURA and the university publication database BRAD, as well as developing successful strategic partnerships for research with a number of research and technology organisations.