Dr Athen Ma
Senior Lecturer
School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science
Queen Mary University of London
Queen Mary University of London
Research
Complex networks, Network science, Machine learning and ecology, Ecological networks, Ecosystem responses, Global environmental change
Interests
My research transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries and develops innovative analytics to examine the structure and dynamics of ecosystems across different domains. I have developed novel analytics that revealed the assembly principles which underpin the organisation of collaborative science in the UK over the past three decades (featured in PNAS issue highlight and commentary, Physics World and Phys.org). My experience in profiling large-scale networks enables me to perform robust analysis and modelling, tailored to undertaking important questions in ecology. I have a strong interest on the community organisation in ecological systems, and have developed multi-disciplinary techniques that uncovered how components of ecological networks rewired under drought (formed the front cover of Nature Climate Change) and how community structures in streams across the UK recovered from acidification. My publication in Nature Ecology and Evolution has revealed that agricultural ecosystems from farm sites across the UK are remarkably resilient to genetically modified, herbicide tolerant management. My multi-disciplinary approach to better understand networked ecosystems has been recognised as key to ecoinformatics and ecological big data research as it provides a platform to explore complex ecological systems and interlink the services (e.g. production of food) they bring.For latest news, visit https://sites.google.com/view/athenma/home
Publications
2021
Sun Y, Livan G, Ma A and Latora V (2021). Interdisciplinary researchers attain better long-term funding performance. Communications Physics, Springer Nature vol. 4 (1) 10-12-2021
GRAY C, Ma A, McLaughlin O, Petit S, Woodward G and Bohan D (2021). Ecological plasticity governs ecosystem services in multilayer networks. Communications Biology, Nature Research (part of Springer Nature) 18-01-2021
2018
Ma A (2018). Ecological networks reveal resilience of agro-ecosystems to changes in farming management. Nature Ecology and Evolution, Nature Research 31-12-2018
Ma A, Bohan DA, Canard E, Derocles SAP, Gray C, Lu X, Macfadyen S, Romero GQ and Kratina P (2018). A Replicated Network Approach to ‘Big Data’ in Ecology. Advances in Ecological Research 20-06-2018
2017
Xu X, Zhang H-Y, Luo J, Zhang D-J and Ma A (2017). Area-corrected species richness patterns of vascular plants along a tropical elevational gradient. Journal of Mountain Science, Springer Nature vol. 14 (4), 694-704. 30-03-2017
Xu X, Zhang H, Zhang D, Tian W, Huang H and Ma A (2017). Altitudinal patterns of plant species richness in the Honghe region of China. Pakistan Journal of Botany vol. 49 (3), 1039-1048. 01-01-2017
2016
Zhao L, Zhang H, O'Gorman EJ, Tian W, Ma A, Moore JC, Borrett SR and Woodward G (2016). Weighting and indirect effects identify keystone species in food webs. Ecology Letters, Wiley vol. 19 (9), 1032-1040. 27-06-2016
Lu X, Gray C, Brown LE, Ledger ME, Milner AM, Mondragón RJ, Woodward G and Ma A (2016). Drought rewires the cores of food webs. Nature Climate Change, Nature Publishing Group vol. 6, 875-878. 09-05-2016
Consortium TQ (2016). Networking Our Way to Better Ecosystem Service Provision. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Elsevier vol. 31 (2), 105-115. 09-01-2016
Gray C, Hildrew AG, Lu X, Ma A, McElroy D, Monteith D, O Gorman E, Shilland E and Woodward G (2016). Chapter Ten - Recovery and Nonrecovery of Freshwater Food Webs from the Effects of Acidification. Advances in Ecological Research Large-Scale Ecology: Model Systems to Global Perspectives , Editors: Alex JD. 475-534. 01-01-2016
2015
Gray C, Figueroa DH, Hudson LN, Ma A, Perkins D and Woodward G (2015). Joining the dots: An automated method for constructing food webs from compendia of published interactions. Food Webs, Elsevier vol. 5, 11-20. 01-12-2015
Ma A, Mondragón RJ and Latora V (2015). Anatomy of funded research in science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences vol. 112 (48), 14760-14765. 26-10-2015
Poslad S, Ma A, Wang Z and Mei H (2015). Using a Smart City IoT to Incentivise and Target Shifts in Mobility Behaviour—Is It a Piece of Pie? Sensors, MDPI vol. 15 (6), 13069-13096. 04-06-2015
Ma A and Mondragon RJ (2015). Rich-cores in Networks. PLoS One, Public Library of Science 15-01-2015
Mulder C, Bennett EM, Bohan DA, Bonkowski M, Carpenter SR, Chalmers R, Cramer W, Durance I, Eisenhauer N, Fontaine C, Haughton AJ, Hettelingh JP, Hines J, Ibanez S, Jeppesen E, Krumins JA, Ma A, Mancinelli G, Massol F, McLaughlin Ó, et al. (2015). 10 years later: Revisiting priorities for science and society a decade after the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Advances in Ecological Research 1-53. 01-01-2015
Mulder C, Bennett EM, Bohan DA, Bonkowski M, Carpenter SR, Chalmers R, Cramer W, Durance I, Eisenhauer N, Fontaine C, Haughton AJ, Hettelingh J-P, Hines J, Ibanez S, Jeppesen E, Krumins JA, Ma A, Mancinelli G, Massol F, McLaughlin Ó, et al. (2015). Chapter One 10 Years Later Revisiting Priorities for Science and Society a Decade After the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Ecosystem Services - From Biodiversity to Society, Part 1 1-53. 01-01-2015
2014
Gray C, Baird DJ, Baumgartner S, Jacob U, Jenkins GB, O'Gorman EJ, Lu X, Ma A, Pocock MJO, Schuwirth N, Thompson M and Woodward G (2014). FORUM: Ecological networks: the missing links in biomonitoring science. Journal of Applied Ecology, Wiley vol. 51 (5), 1444-1449. 28-07-2014
2013
Mei H, Ma A, Poslad S and Oshin TO (2013). Short Term Traffic Volume Prediction for Sustainable Transportation in Urban Area. Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, American Society of Civil Engineers 19-04-2013
Montoya LV, Ma A and Mondragon RJ (2013). Social Achievement and Centrality in MathOverflow. Complex Networks IV, Springer vol. 276 (2013), 27-38. 01-01-2013
2012
Ma A and Mondragón RJ (2012). Evaluation of network robustness using a node tearing algorithm. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier BV vol. 391 (24), 6674-6681. 01-12-2012
Ma A, Poslad S and Oshin TO (2012). Improving the Energy-Efficiency of GPS based Location Sensing Smartphone Applications. 2012 IEEE 11th International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications (TrustCom) Liverpool, UK 25 Jun 2012 - 27 Jun 2012. 01-01-2012
Ma A and Mondragon RJ (2012). Beyond Centrality - Finding vulnerabilities in complex networks. NetSci Evanston, Il, USA 18 Jun 2012 - 22 Jun 2012. 01-01-2012
Oshin TO, Poslad S and Ma A (2012). A Method to Evaluate the Energy-Efficiency of Wide-Area Location Determination Techniques Used by Smartphones. 2012 IEEE 15th International Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) Nicosia, Cyprus 5 Dec 2012 - 7 Dec 2012. 01-01-2012
2011
Pinto FC, Videira A, Ma A and Cuthbert L (2011). Efficient big brother networks. IEEE EUROCOM Lisbon, Portugal 27 Apr 2011 - 29 Apr 2011. 01-01-2011
2010
Wang Y, Shi S, Yang X and Ma A (2010). Bluetooth Indoor Positioning using RSSI and Least Square
Estimation. International Conference on Future Computer and Communication Shanghai, China 1 Jan 1970. 01-01-2010
Yang X, Wu D, Wang Y and Ma A (2010). K-Means Based Clustering on Mobile Usage for Social Network Analysis Purpose. Advanced Information Management and Service (IMS), 2010 6th International Conference on Seoul, Korea 30 Nov 2010 - 2 Dec 2010. 01-01-2010
2009
Ariffin SHS, Schormans JA and Ma AHI (2009). Application of the generalised ballot theorem for evaluation of performance in packet buffers with non-first in first out scheduling. IET COMMUN vol. 3 (6), 933-944. 01-06-2009
Tokarchuk L, Shoop K and Ma A (2009). Using Co-presence Communities to Enhance Social Recommendation. 01-01-2009
Wang Y, Yang X, Lu N, Ma A and Cuthbert L (2009). A Simulation Package for Hot-spot Traffic Relief in WCDMA Networks. Wireless Communications, Networking and Mobile Computing, 2009. WiCom '09. 5th International Conference on Beijing 1 Jan 1970. 01-01-2009
Wang L, De Vial E, Tokarchuk L, Wang Y and Ma A (2009). Blue Danger: Live action gaming over Bluetooth. 01-01-2009
Wang Y, Yang X, Ma A and Cuthbert LG (2009). Intelligent Resource Optimisation Using Semi-Smart Antennas in LTE OFDMA Systems. Communications Technology and Applications, 2009. ICCTA '09. IEEE International Conference on Beijing, China 1 Jan 1970. 01-01-2009
DONG R, TOKARCHUK LN and MA A (2009). Digging Friendship: Paper Recommendation in Social Networks. Proceedings of Networking & Electronic Commerce Research Conference Lake Garda, Italy 1 Jan 1970. 01-01-2009
2008
Chew B, Wang J, Ma A and Bigham J (2008). Anomalous Usage in Web Applications. NAEC Lake Garda, Italy 1 Jan 1970. 01-01-2008
2006
Wang Y, Wu J, Bigham J, Ma A and Cuthbert L (2006). Cooperative control of WCDMA system under geographically congested situations. 01-12-2006
Wang Y, Ma A and Cuthbert L (2006). An Agent-based Passenger Support System over Heterogeneous Wireless Infrastructures in an Airport Environment. IASTED International Conference on Networks and Communication Systems (NCS) Chiang Mai, Thailand 29 Mar 2006 - 31 Mar 2006. 01-01-2006
Wang Y, Ma A and Cuthbert L (2006). Agent Based Cooperation Control over Wireless LAN networks with Semi-Smart Antennas’, IASTED Int’l Conference on Networks and Communication Systems (NCS). IASTED Int’l Conference on Networks and Communication Systems (NCS) Chiang Mai, Thailand 29 Mar 2006 - 31 Mar 2006. 01-01-2006
Wang Y, Ma A, Cuthbert L and Shoop K (2006). A Multi-agent Based Intelligent Wireless Passenger Support system. Networking and Electronic Commerce Research Conference (NAEC) Lake Garda, Italy 1 Jan 1970. 01-01-2006
Wang Y, Ma A and Cuthbert L (2006). IEEE 802.11 WLAN load balancing using adaptive antennas and cooperative controls. IET International Conference on Wireless Mobile and Multimedia Networks Proceedings (ICWMMN 2006) Hanzhou, China 1 Jan 1970. 01-01-2006
Wang Y, Ma A, Wu J, Bigham B and Cuthbert L (2006). Cooperative control of WCDMA system under geographically congested situations. 4th IASTED Int’l Conference on Communications, Internet, and Information Technology (CIIT) Virgin Islands, USA 1 Jan 1970. 01-01-2006
2005
Ma AHI and Schormans JA (2005). Fast, stable simulation of power-law packet traffic using concatenated acceleration techniques. IEE P-COMMUN vol. 152 (4), 420-426. 01-08-2005
2004
Koutsouris N, Mitrou N, Wang Y and Ma A (2004). An agent-based system for supporting enhanced services over wireless infrastructures. CCCT'04 Austin, Texas, USA 1 Jan 1970. 01-01-2004
2003
Ma A, Schormans J and Cuthbert L (2003). Aggregation technique for networks with power law traffic and application to accelerated simulation. IEE P-COMMUN vol. 150 (3), 177-183. 01-06-2003
2002
Leung CM, Schormans JA and Ma AHI (2002). Measurement-based queue length distribution estimation for power-law traffic. ELECTRON LETT vol. 38 (24), 1608-1610. 21-11-2002
Ma AHI and Schormans JA (2002). Hybrid technique for analysis of multiplexed power-law traffic in broadband networks. ELECTRON LETT vol. 38 (6), 295-297. 14-03-2002
Ma AHI and Schormans JA (2002). Accelerated simulation modelling of Power-law traffic via aggregation. ICT02 Beijing, China 1 Jan 1970. 01-01-2002
Ma AHI and Schormans JA (2002). Efficient simulation modelling for long range dependent traffic. RESIM’02 Madrid, Spain 1 Jan 1970. 01-01-2002
2001
Ma AHI and Schormans JA (2001). A fast simulation method for modelling IP networks. 17th UKTS Dublin, Ireland 1 Jan 1970. 01-01-2001
2000
Schormans JA, Pitts JM, Ma AHI and Mondragon R (2000). Accurate results for traffic engineering in the presence of LRD. 16th UKTS Harlow, Essex UK 1 Jan 1970. 01-01-2000
Ma AHI, Schormans JA, Pitts JM, Scharf EM, Pearmain AJ and Phillips CI (2000). Design rules and equivalent capacity for buffering of Pareto source. Elec Lett vol. 36 (15), 1274-1275. 01-01-2000
Grants
Grants of specific relevance to the Centre for Human-Centred ComputingPredicting the Impacts of Global Environmental Change on Ecological NetworksAthen Ma, Vito Latora and Pavel Kratina
£389,809 NERC Natural Environment Research Council (01-06-2024 - 31-05-2027)