Publications

Articles

  1. N. Owusu-Boaitey, L. Böttcher, G. Meyerowitz-Katz, J. Howard, D. H. Gorski, L. Besançon, A. Barchuk, Agreement between seroprevalence- and model-based estimates of COVID-19 burden, Glob. Health Action 19, 2683286 (2026)
  2. L. L. Fonseca, R. C. Laubenbacher, L. Böttcher, Learning dynamical systems with biochemically informed neural ordinary differential equations, preprint, Gitlab repo
  3. L. Böttcher, M. A. Porter, S. Fortunato, Graph energy as a measure of community detectability in networks, preprint, Gitlab repo
  4. Nana Owusu-Boaitey, Mark J. Meyer, Daniel Herrera-Esposito, Lucas Böttcher, Maria Lukz, Sydney Cook, Michael A. Stoto, John D. Kraemer, Estimating COVID-19 cumulative incidence from seroprevalence surveys accounting for time-varying seroreversion: A fully Bayesian methodology, preprint
  5. L. Pagani, R. Leon-Sampedro, M. Amicone, B. Tepekule, C. Witzany, S. D. Brugger, M. de Vos, S. Mitri, E. Bakkeren, M. Bottery, L. Opatowski, G. Leventhal, K. Faust, L. Böttcher, S. Lehtinen, R. Kouyos, S. Bonhoeffer, Modelling the role of the microbiome in antimicrobial resistance across scales, Nat. Microbiol. (2026)
  6. L. Böttcher, Control of dynamical systems with neural networks, Nonlinear Dyn. 114, 79 (2026), arXiv:2510.12810, Gitlab repo
  7. L. Böttcher, S. Felder, Determining the optimal sequence of multiple tests, Stat. Med. 44, e70254 (2025), medRxiv:2025.03.12.25323851, GitHub repo
  8. Y. Ge, L. Böttcher, T. Chou, M. R. D'Orsogna, Efficient portfolio selection through preference aggregation with quicksort and the Bradley--Terry model, J. Comput. Sci. 92, 102728 (2025), arXiv:2504.16093
  9. T. Wong, L. Böttcher, T. Chou, M. R. D'Orsogna, Alcohol-induced deaths in the United States across age, race, gender, geography, and the COVID-19 pandemic, PLOS Glob. Public Health 5, e0004623 (2025), medRxiv:2024.12.10.24318758, GitHub repo
  10. L. Böttcher, M. A. Porter, Clustering-induced localization of quantum walks on networks, Phys. Rev. E 112, L062301 (2025), arXiv:2412.04325, GitLab repo
  11. Y. Ge, L. Böttcher, T. Chou, M. R. D'Orsogna, A knapsack for collective decision-making, arXiv:2409.13236
  12. J. Zhang, X. Li, X. Guo, Z. You, L. Böttcher, A. Mogilner, T. Chou, A. Hoffmann, M. Xia, Reconstructing noisy gene regulation dynamics using extrinsic-noise-driven neural stochastic differential equations, PLOS Comput. Biol. 21, e1013462 (2025), arXiv:2503.09007, GitHub repo
  13. N. Owusu-Boaitey, L. Böttcher, D. He, R. Erkhembayar, L. Yang, D.-H. Kim, A. Barchuk, D. H. Gorski, J. Howard, Impact of cross-reactivity and herd immunity on SARS-CoV-2 pandemic severity, Infect. Dis. 56, 897--902 (2024)
  14. J. Li, T. Asikis, I. Fragkos, L. Böttcher, idinn: Inventory-dynamics control with neural networks, J. Open Source Softw. 10, 8508 (2025), GitLab repo
  15. L. Böttcher, M. R. D'Orsogna, T. Chou, Aggregating multiple test results to improve medical decision-making, PLOS Comput. Biol. 21, e1012749 (2025), arXiv:2409.16442, GitLab repo
  16. L. Böttcher, L. L. Fonseca, R. C. Laubenbacher, Control of medical digital twins with artificial neural networks, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 383, 20240228 (2025), arXiv:2403.13851, biorxiv:2024.03.18.585589, GitLab repo
  17. L. Böttcher, M. A. Porter, Dynamical processes on metric networks, SIAM J. Appl. Dyn. Syst. 24, 2848--2885 (2025), arXiv:2401.00735, GitLab repo, GitHub repo
  18. L. L. Fonseca, L. Böttcher, B. Mehrad, R. C. Laubenbacher, Optimal control of agent-based models via surrogate modeling, PLOS Comput. Biol. 21, e1012138 (2025), arXiv:2402.05750, GitHub repo
  19. 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 3, pgae050 (2024), GitLab repo, arXiv:2309.14452, medRxiv:2023.09.25.23296097
  20. 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
  21. L. Böttcher, M. A. Porter, Complex networks with complex weights, Phys. Rev. E 109, 024314 (2024), arXiv:2212.06257, GitLab repo
  22. 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
  23. L. Böttcher, G. Wheeler, Visualizing high-dimensional loss landscapes with Hessian directions, J. Stat. Mech. Theory Exp., 023401 (2024), arXiv:2208.13219, GitLab repo
  24. 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), GitLab repo, arXiv:2303.16172
  25. L. Böttcher, R. Klingebiel, Organizational selection of innovation, Organ. Sci. 36, 387--410 (2025), arXiv:2405.09843, Gitlab repo
  26. 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
  27. 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)
  28. 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
  29. 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
  30. 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
  31. 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
  32. 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
  33. L. Böttcher, H. Gersbach, D. Wernli, Restoring the antibiotic R&D market to combat the resistance crisis, Sci. Public Policy 49, 127--131 (2022)
  34. 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
  35. 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 Comput. Biol. 18, e1010171 (2022), arXiv:2109.10970, GitHub repo
  36. 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
  37. L. Böttcher, M. R. D'Orsogna, T. Chou, A statistical model of COVID-19 testing in populations: effects of sampling bias and testing errors, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 380, 20210121 (2021), medRxiv:2021.05.22.21257643, arXiv:2105.11961, GitHub repo
  38. L. Böttcher, J. Nagler, Decisive conditions for strategic vaccination against SARS-CoV-2, Chaos 31, 101105 (2021), medRxiv:2021.03.05.21252962, GitHub repo
  39. 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
  40. 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)
  41. 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
  42. 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
  43. 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
  44. 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
  45. P. Richter, M. Henkel, L. Böttcher, Aging and equilibration in bistable contagion dynamics, Phys. Rev. E 102, 042308 (2020), arXiv:2006.05937
  46. 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
  47. 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
  48. L. Böttcher, N. Antulov-Fantulin, Unifying continuous, discrete, and susceptible-infected-recovered processes on networks, Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 033121 (2020), arXiv:2002.11765
  49. 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
  50. F. D'Angelo, L. Böttcher, Learning the Ising model with generative neural networks, Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 023266 (2020), arXiv:2001.05361, GitHub repo
  51. L. Böttcher, A random-line-graph approach to overlapping line segments, J. Complex Netw. 8, cnaa029 (2020), arXiv:1911.10679
  52. S. Nauer, L. Böttcher, M. A. Porter, Random-graph models and characterization of granular networks, J. Complex Netw. 8, cnz037 (2019), arXiv:1907.13424
  53. S. Xu, L. Böttcher, T. Chou, Diversity in biology: definitions, quantification, and models, Phys. Biol. 17, 031001 (2020), arXiv:1908.08190
  54. 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
  55. L. Böttcher, P. Montealegre, E. Goles, H. Gersbach, Competing activists--political polarization, Physica A 545, 123713 (2019), arXiv:1910.14531
  56. S. Strub, L. Böttcher, Modeling deformed transmission lines for continuous strain sensing applications, Meas. Sci. Technol. 31, 035109 (2019), arXiv:1912.13319
  57. M. Hoferer, L. Böttcher, H.J. Herrmann, H. Gersbach, The impact of technologies in political campaigns, Physica A 538, 122795 (2019), arXiv:1909.07644
  58. L. Böttcher, H.J. Herrmann, H. Gersbach, Clout, activists and budget: The road to presidency, PLOS One 13(3):e0193199. (2018), arXiv:1802.02048
  59. L. Böttcher, H.J. Herrmann, M. Henkel, Dynamical universality of the contact process, J. Phys. A 51, 125003 (2018), arXiv:1802.00037
  60. 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
  61. L. Böttcher, J. Nagler, H.J. Herrmann, Critical behaviors in contagion dynamics, Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 088301 (2017), arXiv:1701.08988, GitHub repo
  62. L. Böttcher, O. Woolley-Meza, D. Brockmann, Temporal dynamics of online petitions, PLOS One 12(5):e0178062. (2017), arXiv:1705.04202
  63. 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
  64. 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
  65. 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
  66. 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
  67. 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, and Proceedings

  1. L. Böttcher, T. Chou, M. R'Dorsogna, Forecasting U.S. drug overdose mortality by age, SIAM News (2025)
  2. R. Klingebiel, L. Böttcher, How to decide which innovation projects to greenlight, Harvard Business Review (2024)
  3. 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, 117--161 (2024)
  4. H. Gersbach, L. Böttcher, New incentives for antibiotics research and development, KOF Bulletin, No. 175, July (2023)
  5. 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
  6. 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)
  7. L. Böttcher, H. Gersbach, Tax drugs to fight bugs (edited by John A. Whitfield), Research Europe (2022)
  8. 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)
  9. L. Böttcher, H.J. Herrmann, Computational Statistical Physics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom (2021)

Media Coverage