# Erez Lieberman Aiden
**Erez Lieberman Aiden** is an American scientist who works on the three-dimensional architecture of genomes and is known for inventing the Hi-C method of genome-wide chromosome conformation mapping, for co-creating the Google Ngram Viewer and the field of culturomics, and for introducing evolutionary graph theory. He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), effective August 12, 2025, and Professor of BioSciences at [Rice University](https://www.edgepedia.org/rice-university), where he directs the Center for Genome Architecture.[1](https://www.utmb.edu/provost/resources/academic-enterprise-announcements/article/academic-enterprise-announcements-and-information/2025/08/11/aiden-appointed-chair--department-of-biochemistry---molecular-biology--jssom) • [2](https://aidenlab.org/aboutus.html)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Current positions | Professor and Chair, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, UTMB (effective Aug. 12, 2025); Professor of BioSciences, Rice University[1](https://www.utmb.edu/provost/resources/academic-enterprise-announcements/article/academic-enterprise-announcements-and-information/2025/08/11/aiden-appointed-chair--department-of-biochemistry---molecular-biology--jssom) |
| Education | PhD from Harvard and MIT in 2010 in Applied Mathematics and in Medical Engineering & Medical Physics; MA in Applied Physics from Harvard; MA in History from Yeshiva University; Princeton class of 2002[1](https://www.utmb.edu/provost/resources/academic-enterprise-announcements/article/academic-enterprise-announcements-and-information/2025/08/11/aiden-appointed-chair--department-of-biochemistry---molecular-biology--jssom) • [3](https://paw.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/06062012_issue.pdf) |
| Signature invention | Hi-C, a method for three-dimensional DNA sequencing, reported in *Science* in 2009 with the first three-dimensional map of the human genome at 1 megabase resolution[4](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19815776/) • [5](https://www.cprit.texas.gov/grants-funded/cprit-scholars/scholars/erez-aiden/) |
| Evolutionary graph theory | Introduced with Christoph Hauert and Martin A. Nowak in "Evolutionary dynamics on graphs," *Nature* 433, 312–316 (2005)[6](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15662424/) |
| Culturomics | Co-founded with Jean-Baptiste Michel; the 2011 *Science* paper analyzed a corpus of about 5 million books, roughly 4% of all books ever published, and produced the Google Ngram Viewer[7](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11615-024-00569-4) |
| Genome loops | In 2014 his laboratory reported the first comprehensive map of loops across the human genome, with anchors mapped at single-base-pair resolution (Rao & Huntley et al., *Cell*, 2014)[5](https://www.cprit.texas.gov/grants-funded/cprit-scholars/scholars/erez-aiden/) |
| Selected honors | Technology Review TR35 (2009); Lemelson-MIT Student Prize (2010); Hertz Thesis Prize (2010); APS Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Biological Physics (2010); NIH Director's New Innovator Award (2011)[8](https://www.hertzfoundation.org/people/erez-lieberman-aiden/) |
## Education and early career
Aiden graduated from Princeton University in 2002.[3](https://paw.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/06062012_issue.pdf) He studied mathematics, physics, philosophy, and history before pursuing graduate work at Harvard and MIT, and he has described deliberately avoiding specialization.[9](https://naturalsciences.rice.edu/news/erez-lieberman-aiden-mapping-lifes-3d-code) He received a PhD in 2010 from Harvard and MIT in Applied Mathematics and in Medical Engineering & Medical Physics, along with an MA in Applied Physics from Harvard and an MA in History from [Yeshiva University](https://www.edgepedia.org/yeshiva-university).[1](https://www.utmb.edu/provost/resources/academic-enterprise-announcements/article/academic-enterprise-announcements-and-information/2025/08/11/aiden-appointed-chair--department-of-biochemistry---molecular-biology--jssom) His thesis work spanned topology applied to population evolution and the creation, with Google, of a tool for studying large language datasets.[9](https://naturalsciences.rice.edu/news/erez-lieberman-aiden-mapping-lifes-3d-code)
After his doctorate he spent several years as a junior fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows, a three-year appointment for independent research in any area, and as visiting faculty at Google.[3](https://paw.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/06062012_issue.pdf) • [5](https://www.cprit.texas.gov/grants-funded/cprit-scholars/scholars/erez-aiden/) He next joined the faculty of [Baylor College of Medicine](https://www.edgepedia.org/baylor-college-of-medicine) as an assistant professor of genetics while also holding an assistant professorship in computer science and applied mathematics at Rice University, eventually earning tenure at Baylor as a professor of molecular and human genetics and taking charge of the Center for Genome Architecture.[5](https://www.cprit.texas.gov/grants-funded/cprit-scholars/scholars/erez-aiden/) • [1](https://www.utmb.edu/provost/resources/academic-enterprise-announcements/article/academic-enterprise-announcements-and-information/2025/08/11/aiden-appointed-chair--department-of-biochemistry---molecular-biology--jssom)
## Evolutionary graph theory
In 2005, with Christoph Hauert, a zoologist then at the [University of British Columbia](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-british-columbia), and [Martin A. Nowak](https://www.edgepedia.org/martin-a-nowak), a mathematician who directs Harvard's Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Aiden published "Evolutionary dynamics on graphs" in *Nature*.[6](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15662424/) The paper generalizes population structure by arranging individuals on a graph, where each vertex represents an individual and weighted edges denote reproductive rates; the homogeneous [Moran process](https://www.edgepedia.org/moran-process) is the special case of a fully connected graph with evenly weighted edges.[6](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15662424/)
The framework introduced quantities that have organized the field since. The authors determined the fixation probability of mutants, characterized graphs whose fixation behavior matches a homogeneous population, and showed that some graphs act as suppressors of selection while others act as amplifiers, with some graphs guaranteeing the fixation of any advantageous mutant.[6](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15662424/) They also showed that the outcome of evolutionary games can depend entirely on the structure of the underlying graph.[6](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15662424/) [Evolutionary graph theory](https://www.edgepedia.org/evolutionary-graph-theory) has since become a widely used approach for studying how structure affects Darwinian evolution, with applications described in fields ranging from ecology to multicellular organization and economics.[8](https://www.hertzfoundation.org/people/erez-lieberman-aiden/) • [10](https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v433y2005i7023d10.1038_nature03204.html)
Later research built directly on this foundation. Subsequent work showed that whether a graph amplifies or suppresses selection depends on the update rule: under birth-death updating almost all small random graphs are amplifiers of selection, while under death-birth updating almost all are suppressors.[11](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4636432/) Researchers have also shown that amplification typically carries a cost in fixation time, and that some graphs switch between suppression and amplification as the mutant's fitness advantage changes.[12](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6478964/)
## Hi-C and the three-dimensional genome
Aiden's best-known invention is Hi-C, a method for three-dimensional [DNA sequencing](https://www.edgepedia.org/dna-sequencing) that lets scientists examine how the roughly two-meter-long human genome folds inside the cell nucleus.[5](https://www.cprit.texas.gov/grants-funded/cprit-scholars/scholars/erez-aiden/) The 2009 *Science* paper, on which he was first author with Nynke van Berkum and colleagues including Eric S. Lander and [Job Dekker](https://www.edgepedia.org/job-dekker), constructed spatial proximity maps of the human genome with Hi-C at a resolution of 1 megabase and appeared on the cover of the journal.[4](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19815776/) • [8](https://www.hertzfoundation.org/people/erez-lieberman-aiden/) Using Hi-C, the team identified a polymer configuration they called the fractal globule, which allows the genome to pack densely without forming knots, and described a form of epigenetic regulation in which genes move in three dimensions as they are turned on and off.[8](https://www.hertzfoundation.org/people/erez-lieberman-aiden/)
In 2014 his laboratory reported the first comprehensive map of DNA loops across the human genome, mapping loop anchors at single-base-pair resolution.[5](https://www.cprit.texas.gov/grants-funded/cprit-scholars/scholars/erez-aiden/) Aiden frames the biological stakes of this work in terms of cell identity: the DNA sequence is the same in every cell, and what makes a heart cell beat, a brain cell think, or an immune cell fight disease has to do with how DNA is structured in three dimensions.[9](https://naturalsciences.rice.edu/news/erez-lieberman-aiden-mapping-lifes-3d-code) His lab also applied genome assembly methods to disease vectors, reporting the first end-to-end assembly of the *Aedes aegypti* genome, the mosquito that carries the [Zika virus](https://www.edgepedia.org/zika-virus).[5](https://www.cprit.texas.gov/grants-funded/cprit-scholars/scholars/erez-aiden/)
## Culturomics and the Google Ngram Viewer
With [Jean-Baptiste Michel](https://www.edgepedia.org/jean-baptiste-michel), Aiden developed culturomics, the quantitative study of human culture through digitized text, which they described as a cultural counterpart to the human genome project.[13](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/erez-lieberman-aiden) The project grew out of a talk by the linguist [Steven Pinker](https://www.edgepedia.org/steven-pinker) noting that although only about three percent of [English verbs](https://www.edgepedia.org/english-verbs) are irregular, they include the most commonly used ones; Aiden and Michel traced 177 irregular verbs from the 9th-century *Beowulf* through the 13th-century *Canterbury Tales* to modern usage and found that verbs regularize over time, with rarer verbs regularizing faster.[13](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/erez-lieberman-aiden)
The pair joined forces with Google, whose director of research [Peter Norvig](https://www.edgepedia.org/peter-norvig) supported the project from the first meeting, and spent about a year cleaning scanning errors and inaccurate metadata out of the data.[13](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/erez-lieberman-aiden) The resulting corpus covered about 5 million books in six languages, roughly 4% of all books ever published, and the Google Ngram Viewer charts word and phrase frequencies across it.[7](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11615-024-00569-4) The culturomics paper appeared in *Science* in 2011.[7](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11615-024-00569-4) Aiden and Michel also co-authored a 2012 paper on syntactic annotations for the Ngram corpus.[14](https://research.google.com/pubs/archive/38277.pdf)
The tool's limitations have drawn sustained scrutiny. Researchers have documented optical character recognition errors, a growing share of scientific texts that skews results toward academic usage, and corpus composition changes after 2006; Aiden himself has recommended using the tool only up to 2006 for the study of the history of culture and ideas.[15](https://www.geosociety.org/gsa-today/may-2018/charting-the-geosciences-with-google-ngram-viewer) • [7](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11615-024-00569-4) Later corpora were generated in July 2009, July 2012, and February 2020, and the viewer now supports queries of up to seven words.[16](https://books.google.com/ngrams/info)
## Other inventions
Aiden's work has extended into wearable computing. He invented the iShoe, an insole that can diagnose balance problems in elderly people, which *Popular Mechanics* named one of the top twenty "biotech breakthroughs that will change medicine."[17](https://seas.harvard.edu/news/renaissance-man) • [8](https://www.hertzfoundation.org/people/erez-lieberman-aiden/) His wearable artificial intelligence systems have been used by NASA astronauts and developed for the next generation space suit.[8](https://www.hertzfoundation.org/people/erez-lieberman-aiden/)
## Honors and recognition
Aiden was named one of *Technology Review*'s TR35, recognizing the top 35 innovators under 35, in September 2009, and won the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for the best student inventor in March 2010.[8](https://www.hertzfoundation.org/people/erez-lieberman-aiden/) His doctoral thesis received the 2010 Hertz Thesis Prize and the [American Physical Society](https://www.edgepedia.org/american-physical-society)'s Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Research in Biological Physics, and he received the NIH Director's New Innovator Award in 2011.[8](https://www.hertzfoundation.org/people/erez-lieberman-aiden/) He was named a CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas and was included in *Cell*'s 2014 "40 Under 40" list.[5](https://www.cprit.texas.gov/grants-funded/cprit-scholars/scholars/erez-aiden/) The 2009 genome-folding paper was listed by Faculty of 1000 among the all-time top 10 papers in three categories: molecular biology, biotechnology, and bioinformatics.[8](https://www.hertzfoundation.org/people/erez-lieberman-aiden/)
## References
1. [Aiden Appointed Chair, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, JSSOM, UTMB Academic Enterprise Announcements (August 11, 2025)](https://www.utmb.edu/provost/resources/academic-enterprise-announcements/article/academic-enterprise-announcements-and-information/2025/08/11/aiden-appointed-chair--department-of-biochemistry---molecular-biology--jssom)
2. [Aiden Lab: About Us, The Center for Genome Architecture, UTMB](https://aidenlab.org/aboutus.html)
3. [If you think a scientist can't be a humanist, meet Erez Lieberman Aiden '02, Princeton Alumni Weekly](https://paw.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/pdf/06062012_issue.pdf)
4. [Lieberman-Aiden et al. (2009). Comprehensive mapping of long-range interactions reveals folding principles of the human genome. Science 326(5950):289-293. PubMed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19815776/)
5. [Erez Aiden, CPRIT Scholar profile, Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas](https://www.cprit.texas.gov/grants-funded/cprit-scholars/scholars/erez-aiden/)
6. [Lieberman, E., Hauert, C. & Nowak, M. (2005). Evolutionary dynamics on graphs. Nature 433, 312-316. PubMed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15662424/)
7. [Big Data and Ideational Institutionalism: Reconsidering the Possibilities and Limitations of Google Ngram in the Study of Ideas, Politische Vierteljahresschrift (2024)](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11615-024-00569-4)
8. [Erez Lieberman-Aiden, PhD, Hertz Foundation Fellow profile](https://www.hertzfoundation.org/people/erez-lieberman-aiden/)
9. [Erez Lieberman Aiden: Mapping life's 3D code, Rice University Wiess School of Natural Sciences (September 22, 2025)](https://naturalsciences.rice.edu/news/erez-lieberman-aiden-mapping-lifes-3d-code)
10. [Evolutionary dynamics on graphs, RePEc citation record, Nature 433(7023), 312-316](https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v433y2005i7023d10.1038_nature03204.html)
11. [Most Undirected Random Graphs Are Amplifiers of Selection for Birth-Death Dynamics, but Suppressors of Selection for Death-Birth Dynamics, PLOS Computational Biology via PMC](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4636432/)
12. [Exploring and mapping the universe of evolutionary graphs identifies structural properties affecting fixation probability and time, Nature Communications via PMC](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6478964/)
13. [OpenLab: The Renaissance Man, and how to become a scientist over and over again, National Geographic](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/erez-lieberman-aiden)
14. [Lin, Michel, Lieberman Aiden, Orwant, Brockman, Petrov (2012). Syntactic Annotations for the Google Books Ngram Corpus, ACL '12](https://research.google.com/pubs/archive/38277.pdf)
15. [Charting the Geosciences with Google Ngram Viewer, GSA Today (May 2018)](https://www.geosociety.org/gsa-today/may-2018/charting-the-geosciences-with-google-ngram-viewer)
16. [Google Books Ngram Viewer: information and release notes](https://books.google.com/ngrams/info)
17. [The Renaissance man, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (June 9, 2011)](https://seas.harvard.edu/news/renaissance-man)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Physical world and mathematics › Mathematics and statistics › Logic and discrete mathematics › General discrete mathematics and discrete structures › Graph theory › Graph theory subfields and named results › Evolutionary graph theory*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 15, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026 · Last review: Oct 15, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license