IACS Mentors

 * - Denotes IACS Core Faculty

Applied Mathematics & Statistics

Yuefan Deng - Dr. Deng’s research involves developing parallel computing algorithms for a wide range of scientific problems.  In particular, he is a specialist in parallelizing the optimization technique of simulated annealing.  

James Glimm - Dr. Glimm has made fundamental contributions to nonlinear analysisto quantum field theory, and to computational fluid dynamics. The Department of Energy adopted Glimm’s front-track methodology for shock-wave calculations, e.g., simulating weapons performance.

Robert J. Harrison* - Dr. Harrison's research interests are focused on scientific computing and the development of computational chemistry methods for the world's most technologically advanced supercomputers.

Xiangmin Jiao* - Dr. Jiao's research interests are in high-performance geometric and numerical computing in science and engineering. 

Dima Kozakov - Dr. Kozakov research interests lie at the intersection of applied mathematics, physics and computational biology. He focuses on two main goals. The first is the development of mathematically elegant, computationally efficient and physically accurate algorithms for modeling macromolecular structure and function on the genome scale. The second is the application of novel methods to improving the understanding of biological problems and to the design of therapeutic molecules with desired biological and biomedical properties.

Matthew Reuter* - Dr. Reuter's research sits at the intersection of chemical physics, applied mathematics, and computational science. Some research investigates the chemical dynamics of nanometer-scale systems, whereas others develop mathematical and computational tools for describing such behavior.

Robert Rizzo - Dr. Rizzo works in Computational Structural Biology. His research group seeks to understand the atomic basis for molecular recognition for specific biological systems involved in human disease such as HIV/AIDS, cancer, and influenza with the ultimate goal of developing new and improved drugs.  Computational methods are used to model how molecules interact at the atomic level with a given drug target.  The resultant 3D structural and energetic information is used to quantify and rationalize drug-binding for known systems and to make new predictions.

Roman Samulyak - Samulyak’s research involves mathematical modeling, numerical algorithms, and high performance computing. He works on the development of numerical algorithms based on particles and meshes for hydro- and magnetohydrodynamics, electrodynamics, and solid dynamics, in particular brittle fracture. His applications include processes in particle accelerators, high energy density physics, and nuclear fusion and fission devices.

Song Wu - Dr. Wu’s research focuses mainly on statistical genetics by developing new methodologies to unravel the genetics underlying complex traits. He had received intensive training in both Statistics and Genetics, and is working towards bridging these two fields. His specific research areas include QTL mapping, linkage mapping, linkage disequilibrium mapping, microarray data analysis, genome-wide association study, next-generation sequencing data analysis (WG-seq, RNA-seq, ChIP-seq), molecular pathway analysis, bioinformatics and applied longitudinal data analysis.

Wei Zhu - Zhu is a statistician whose diverse research projects include design and analysis of experiments (for dose response studies and clinical trials), longitudinal and contemporaneous pathway discovery and analysis (for biological pathways and financial networks), errors in variable modeling (for measurement platform/instrument comparisons and calibrations), and robust regression analysis. 

Biomedical Informatics 

Joel Saltz - Saltz is a leader in research on advanced information technologies for large scale data science and biomedical/scientific research. He has developed innovative pathology informatics methods, including: the first published whole slide virtual microscope system; pioneering pathology computer-aided diagnosis techniques; and methods for decomposing pathology images into features and linking those features to cancer “omics”, response to treatment and outcome. He has broken new ground in big data through development of the filter-stream based DataCutter system, the map-reduce style Active Data Repository and the inspector-executor runtime compiler framework. He has also been an active contributor in clinical informatics, having developed predictive models for hospital readmissions, point of care laboratory testing quality assurance systems, decision support systems for electrophoresis interpretation and graphical user interfaces to support clinical data warehouse queries. 

Chemistry

Benjamin Levine - Benjamin G. Levine’s research program focuses on developing and applying methods for simulating electronically excited molecules and materials, including those important for solar energy conversion and light-driven chemistry.  His work encompasses the development of new theories and simulation methods, the efficient implementation of these methods on high-performance computer hardware, and the application of the resulting tools to solve real chemical problems of fundamental and technological interest. 

Carlos Simmerling - Dr. Simmerling's research group carries out research in the area of computational structural biology. In particular, the lab focuses on understanding how dynamic structural changes are involved in the behavior of biomolecules, such as proteins and nucleic acids. 

Civil Engineering 

Georgios Moutsanidis - Dr. Moutsanidis’ research interests lie in the general area of computational mechanics, engineering, and sciences, and he works on the development of high-fidelity computational methods for the simulation of extreme events, such as Air-Blast-Structure Interaction (ABSI), hypervelocity impact, and fracture.

Fotis Sotiropoulos - Dr. Sotiropoulos' research focuses on simulation-based engineering science for fluid mechanics, problems in renewable energy, environmental, biological and cardiovascular applications. 

Computer Science

Barbara Chapman* - Dr. Chapman has been involved with the evolution of the OpenMP directive-based programming standard since 2001. She also is an active participant in the OpenSHMEM and OpenACC programming standards efforts. Her work explores programming models for large-scale computing with a focus on node programming, strategies for runtime optimizations, compiler-tool interactions and high-level programming models for embedded systems.  

Rezaul Chowdhury - Dr. Chowdhury leads the Theoretical and Experimental Algorithmics (TEA) Group which concentrates on both algorithm design and algorithm engineering. Research interests include; design and analysis of algorithms and data structures for combinatorial problems, especially,  algorithms for massive datasets, algorithms for multicore computing, and graph algorithms (static and dynamic, exact and approximate), computational biology and bioinformatics, computer aided algorithm design, and experimental algorithmics.

Arie Kaufman - Dr. Kaufman has conducted research for over 40 years in visualization, graphics, virtual reality, user interfaces, multimedia, and their applications, especially in biomedicine.

Klaus Mueller - Dr. Mueller's research and publications group into these general areas: Medical imaging; Volume visualization; Filters and grids; Computer graphics: color, texture, details, points; Simulation of natural phenomena and urban security applications; General purpose computing on programmable graphics hardware (GPGPU); Visual analytics, visual data mining and information visualization; Face recognition. 

Dimitris Samaras - Dr. Samaras' research interests are in computer vision, computer graphics, machine learning, medical imaging, human behavior analysis and modeling, image based rendering, physics-based modeling.

Steve Skiena - Dr. Skiena's research is focused on algorithms, computational biology, large-scale text analytics and sentiment analysis, social trends analysis, combinatorial computing environments, and combinatorial algorithms and data structures.

Yifan Sun - Dr. Sun’s research focuses on large-scale optimization algorithms that arise in machine learning and scientific computing applications. This domain often includes problems that are often nonsmooth and nonconvex, in the context of heavy computation and memory requirements that must be curtailed through sampling and distribution. The research has three main themes: leveraging foundational concepts to provide intuition across applications and heuristics, developing and improving algorithms to adapt to modern day needs and resources, and giving theoretical guarantees on best- and worst-case behavior for the resulting methods.

Ecology & Evolution 

Liliana Dávalos - Dr. Dávalos is Professor of Conservation Biology. Her research interests include molecular evolution, phylogenetics and tropical biology. She leads the Tropical Biology group, which studies extinction and survival in deep time, functional genetics in non-model mammals, and deforestation.

Heather Lynch* - Dr. Lynch's research focuses on the development and application of statistics and mathematics to conservation biology. Her current research revolves around a large-scale vessel-based breeding bird survey program called the Antarctic Site Inventory, a project she manages in partnership with the non-profit research organization Oceanites.

Electrical & Computer Engineering

Mónica Bugallo - Dr. Bugallo's research interests are in the field of statistical signal processing, with emphasis on the theory of Monte Carlo methods and its application to different disciplines including biomedicine, sensor networks, and finance. 

Linguistics

Thomas Graf - Graf's research operates at the intersection of theoretical linguistics and  computer science. His main interest is in the structural complexity of syntax, morphology, and  phonology, its implications for processing and acquisition, and how empirical  phenomena such as island effects arise from the complexity limits of natural  language. In his research Graf has drawn on data from a wide range of languages  including English, German, Icelandic, Cairene Arabic and American Sign  Language.

Jeffrey Heinz* - Dr. Heinz's research lies at the intersection of theoretical and mathematical linguistics, theoretical computer science, and computational learning theory, with specializations in phonology, linguistic typology, and grammatical inference. 

Jordan Kodner - Jordan Kodner's research takes a computational approach to language acquisition, acquisition's impact on language variation and change, and its relationship to low-resource natural language processing, with an interest in how small, variable, and unreliable input affect the learning process. His acquisition work has touched on several eras and varieties of English, and on Latin, Spanish, and Korean, among others, and his work in low-resource NLP aims to include a wide range of world languages, both well-studied and under-served.

Owen Rambow* - Rambow is currently working in two research areas.  First, he is developing computational models to understand how humans use language to signal and affect cognitive state, for example their beliefs and what they believe are the other discourse participants’ beliefs.  Second, he is working with colleagues to develop computational models of Arabic, currently concentrating on dialectal variation and morphology.

Marine and Atmospheric Sciences

Brian Colle - Dr. Colle's research topics include extreme weather, coastal meteorology, weather forecasting, and regional climate change.

Marat Khairoutdinov* - Dr. Khairoutdinov's research seeks to understand the role of clouds in the Earth climate system through high-resolution cloud modeling. The foci of modeling activities include microphysics processes, cloud mixing and entrainment, life-cycle of boundary layer clouds, drizzle, turbulence, shallow and deep convection, interactions of clouds with radiation and with atmospheric aerosol.

Christopher Wolfe - Dr. Wolfe's research interests include studying effect of ocean circulation on climate; large-scale ocean circulation, overturning circulation, and deep stratification; mesoscale eddies and the effect on the large-scale circulation; ocean modeling; predictability and forecasting; nonlinear dynamics in geophysical flows; buoyancy driven currents and their instabilities.

Minghua Zhang - Dr. Zhang's research concerns numerical modeling of climate and global climate change. This includes development and analysis of parameterization components in general circulation models, diagnostic study of physical processes and feedback processes in the climate system, modeling and analysis of past and future climate changes, by using models and satellite measurements as well as other observations.

Materials Science & Chemical Engineering 

Anatoly Frenkel - Dr. Frenkel's research interests include physico-chemical properties of nanoparticles and disordered systems,  piezo-, ferro-, pyro-electricity and electrostriction in thin films,  mechanisms of doping and diffusion in semiconductor quantum dots,  mechanisms of work of functional nanomaterials (catalysts, filtration materials, actuators).   Development of   in situ  operando  techniques and synchrotron methods (spectroscopy, scattering and imaging) . Development of machine learning methods for structural analysis of nanomaterials.

Dilip Gersappe - Dr. Gersappe's research focuses on studying statistical mechanics and computer modeling of complex chemical systems. He investigates the behavior of self-assembling polymeric and biopolymeric systems, and is developing theories for the properties of polymer blends and the behavior of polymers at surfaces and interfaces. 

Sotirios Mamalis - Dr. Mamalis’ research interests lie in the area of power generation and propulsion systems with emphasis on internal combustion engines. His research focuses on modeling of advanced combustion modes in engines – such as Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) – using conventional and alternative fuels, and development of physical models appropriate for powertrain simulation and analysis. Another of his interest areas is thermodynamic analysis of propulsion systems using exergy concepts, for identifying processes that promote efficient energy conversion.

Alexander Orlov - Dr. Orlov's principle research and teaching activities are in the development of novel materials for energy generation, structural applications and environmental protection. The majority of his research focuses on synthesis of novel catalytic nanomaterials and tuning their properties for environmental and energy related applications.

Jason Trelewicz* - Dr. Trelewicz' research explores the science of interface engineered alloys using in situ and analytical characterization tools coupled with large-scale atomistic simulations to design materials for extreme environment applications.

Music

Margaret Schedel - Dr. Schedel's interdisciplinary career blends classical training in cello and composition, sound/audio data research, and innovative computational arts education to produce integrated work at the nexus of computation and the arts. She has a diverse creative output with works spanning the interactive multimedia opera The King Listens, virtual reality experiences, sound art, video game scores, and compositions for a wide variety of classical instruments or custom controllers with interactive audio and video processing. Her research focuses on gesture in music, the sustainability of technology in art, and sonification of data.

Neurobiology and Behavior

Braden A. W. Brinkman - Dr. Brinkman's group studies how networks of neurons work together to process, transmit, information, and perform computations on their inputs. 

Alfredo Fontanini - Dr. Fontanini's group studies how different internal/cognitive states modulate neural responses to sensory stimuli in awake behaving rats and mice. They study the neural responses to odors and tastes, as well as systems dynamics related to different cognitive states, using multisite multielectrode techniques and in vivo intracellular electrophysiology.  

Giancarlo La Camera - Dr. La Camera uses theoretical approaches to study the behavior of populations of spiking neurons with the ultimate goal of understanding the neural basis of learning and behavior.

I. Memming Park - Dr. Park's interests lie in how information is encoded as spatiotemporal patterns of neural activity, and how information is processed to perform specific computations within and across brain areas. 

Physics & Astronomy

Phillip B. Allen - Dr. Allen's research focuses on condensed matter theory. His research interests have included high temperature superconductors, transport properties of all forms of solids, polarons, metal/insulator transitions, and properties of glasses.  Current work is mainly on various aspects of nanoscience: nanowires, structural, electronic, and vibrational issues, including vibronic effects in electron behavior, and electrical dipole formation (spontaneous or structurally intrinsic).  

Philip Armitage - Dr. Armitage is interested in using numerical simulations to understand the physics of protoplanetary disks, the formation of extrasolar planets, and the astrophysics of black holes. Ongoing work studies the formation of planetesimals, the accretion of planetary envelopes, and the role of strong magnetic fields in black hole accretion. 

Alan C. Calder* - Dr. Calder's research is in the field of nuclear astrophysics, and his work involves simulating explosive astrophysical phenomena. 

Cyrus Dreyer - Dr. Dreyer studies theoretical condensed matter physics, particularly focusing on new materials through density functional theory.

Marivi Fernandez-Serra* - Dr. Fernandez-Serra's research is in the field of computational condensed matter physics. She develops and applies methods to study the atomic and electronic dynamics of complex materials. One of her main research areas is the study of fundamental properties of liquid water using quantum mechanical simulations. In her group they are trying to understand  the origin of  the anomalies of the phase diagram of water. They also apply their methods to study the interface between water and functional elements such as electrodes, photocatalytic semiconductors and graphene. 

James Lattimer - Dr. Lattimer's research focuses on many aspects of neutron star structure, composition, formation and evolution.

F. Douglas Swesty - Dr. Swesty's research interests are in the areas of computational physics, nuclear astrophysics, and uncertainty quantification. His current projects include the development of new algorithms for computational radiation trnasport and radiation hydodynamics and the development of algorithms for hte quantification of uncertainty in astrophysical simulations. 

Sergey Syritsyn - Dr. Syritsyn's research interests include wuantum field theory on a lattice, QCD, and nuclear particle physics.

Michael Zingale - Dr. Zingale's main research interests involve computational astrophysics, particuarly the development of new hyrdodynamics methods for low Mach number astrophysical flows and nucelar astrophysics--particularly anything that blows up.

Psychology

Christian Luhmann - Dr. Luhmann's lab researches complex behavior with a particular focus on decision making and learning and the interplay between these behaviors. They explore these interests in a variety of domains, using a variety of methodological tools, including behavior and computational modeling as well as neuroscientific methods such as EEG and fMRI. He is interested in how people make decisions in the face of incomplete, inconsistent, ambiguous, or uncertain information.

Sociology 

Jason J. Jones - Dr. Jones' research explores massive datasets to re-examine human behavior.  He has collaborated with Facebook to conduct experiments regarding social norms around voting - each experiment generating data from millions of participants. Broadly, his research interests involve the application of computational social science to predict political, health and other social behaviors.

Yongjun Zhang - Dr. Zhang is a computational and quantitative sociologist studying politics, organizations, networks, and inequality. His ongoing work combines statistical, network, and computational methods with large-scale datasets to study shareholder activism and corporate political behavior. He has published in top journals such as American Journal of Sociology and Demography.