Wiggins was influenced heavily by his PhD advisor Philip Holmes. His dissertation was on "Slowly Varying Oscillators."[4] From 1987 to 2001, he was a professor at Caltech.[5][6] He is actively working on the advancement of computational applied mathematics at the University of Bristol,[7] where he was the head of the mathematics department from 2004 until 2008, and was the school research director.[8] As of August 2020 Wiggins had 12 PhD students and 60 academic descendants.[4]
Wiggins has contributed in many different areas of applied mathematics, science, and engineering using applied and computational dynamics as the framework for his approach and analysis.[8]
His current focus is on developing the phase space approach to chemical reaction dynamics in the setting of the CHAMPS (Chemistry and Mathematics in Phase Space) project.[3][8] Previously he has established quite successful US-UK-Spain research network in building novel foundational connection between applied mathematics and theoretical chemistry.[9]
V.J.García-Garrido; M.Katsanikas; M.Agaoglou; S.Wiggins: Tuning the branching ratio in a symmetric potential energy surface with a post-transition state bifurcation using external time dependence, Chemical Physics Letters, 2020-09: DOI: 10.1016/j.cplett.2020.137714 [13]
Global Bifurcations and Chaos -- Analytical Methods. Springer-Verlag Applied Mathematical Science Series. 1988, second printing 1990. ISBN0387967753
Introduction to Applied Nonlinear Dynamical Systems and Chaos. Springer-Verlag textbooks in Applied Mathematics Series, 1990, second printing 1991. Second Edition (expanded) 2003. First edition translated into Japanese. ISBN0387001778
Chaotic Transport in Dynamical Systems. Springer-Verlag Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematical Sciences Series, 1992. ISBN0387975225
Global Dynamics, Phase Space Transport, Orbits Homoclinic to Resonances, and Applications. American Mathematical Society, 1993. ISBN0821892029
Invariant Manifolds and Fibrations for Perturbed Nonlinear Schrödinger Equations (with Y. Li). Springer-Verlag Applied Mathematical Science Series, 1997. ISBN0387949259
Lagrangian Transport in Geophysical Jets and Waves: The Dynamical Systems Approach (with R. Samelson). Springer-Verlag Interdisciplinary Applied Mathematical Sciences Series, 2006. Translated into Russian, 2010. ISBN0387332693
Mathematical Foundations of Mixing: The Linked Twist Map as a Paradigm in Applications Micro to Macro, Fluids to Solids (with R. Sturman and J. M. Ottino). Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN0521868130
^Smith, Douglas L. (2002). "Next Exit 0.5 Million Kilometers"(PDF). Engineering & Science. 4: 12. …Steve Wiggins [a Caltech professor from 1987 to2001].