Poets and academics have defined mathematics as the language of nature or the most coherent codification of reality. Dirk Erhard’s project seems to follow this principle, which seeks universal patterns in probabilistic and complex physics processes whose results cannot be expressed by a normal distribution.

Born in Germany, Erhard was a five-time national medalist in trampoline jumping as a child. He devoted nine years to the sport before fully focusing on mathematics. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Technische Universität Berlin and his doctorate in natural sciences and mathematics from Leiden University in the Netherlands.

Dirk Erhard met and married a Brazilian doctoral student in biology in Leiden. He left Europe for Brazil to be with his wife and is now an adjunct professor at the Federal University of Bahia. The couple learned the traditional German bread recipe to preserve the mathematician’s family tradition. Erhard also enjoys swimming and running to oxygenate and de-stress from work.