Current Students
Santiago Cardenas
Entered program in 2022
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I am interested in using mathematical models to understand biology, in areas including computational genomics, disease transmission, and evolutionary dynamics. My research background includes tumor growth modeling and plant systematics.
Samuel Christensen
Entered program in 2017
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I work with Marcus Roper to study small scale fluid flow applied to biological systems. More specifically, I use a combination of asymptotic and numerical methods to study fluid flow problems in microfluidic devices and blood flow.
Christine Craib
Entered program in 2019
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I study sexual networks and STD transmission with Mason A. Porter (Professor, Department of Mathematics). The crux of this project involves developing detailed sexual networks which are heterogeneous with respect to both demographics and sexual behavior. I am interested in infectious disease dynamics and utilizing mathematics to improve the public's health, especially regarding biomedical research and policymaking.
Paheli Desai-Chowdhry
Entered program in 2018
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My research interests center around mathematical modeling in neuroscience. I am working with Professor Van Savage on building a unifying biophysical model to understand how nerve cell structure, morphology, and branching patterns relate to their various functional roles in the brain and body. This model illustrates how the tradeoff between different functional roles leads to the diversity of structural properties observed across cell types. I am analyzing 3D image data of neurons and glial cells from species ranging in size from insects and rodents to elephants and whales, extracting quantitative morphological properties and comparing empirical results to theoretical predictions to validate the model. I am currently working on refining my original model to include details that more accurately represent essential properties of biological neurons.
Siqi Fang
Entered program in 2021
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I am interested in computational genomics and population genetics. My background is in applied mathematics and my past research projects include evolutionary dynamics and computational neuroscience.
Mariana Harris
Entered program in 2019
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I am interested in problems that lie at the interface of mathematics, statistics and biology. Specifically, my research is focused on understanding the tempo and mode of adaptation in natural populations. I work with Dr. Nandita Garud using statistics and computational population genomics to detect signatures of positive selection in genomic data.
Gabriel Hassler
Entered program in 2017
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I work with Dr. Marc Suchard on models of phenotypic (trait) evolution. I develop new statistical methods for these models and implement them in the phylogenetic inference software BEAST. I use these methods to study patterns of evolution in primate brains, prokaryotes, HIV, and more.
Xiangting Li
Entered program in 2020
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I'm interested in mathematical modeling of molecular biophysics phenomena and inference of dynamics from large datasets.
Tianyun (Jason) Lin
Entered program in 2016
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I am working with Professor Van Savage on various projects that embark on exploring the dynamics, topological characteristics, and evolution of food webs using mechanistic models. I am also interested in Network Science, Theoretical Ecology, and Evolutionary Game Theory.
Rachel Mester
Entered program in 2019
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I am interested in the intersection of computational methods and genomics, particularly in the area of disease subtyping and understanding the genetic basis for differentiated clinical outcomes including survival, comorbidities, and responses to treatment. My background is in applied mathematics and software development for clinical oncology, and I hope to be able to bring these areas together in my future research.
yunbei Pan
Entered program in 2022
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I am interested in mathematical modeling to investigate complex biological systems of immunology and hematopoiesis by fitting data.
Alexandra (Sasha) Schtein
Entered program in 2022
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I am interested in applying mathematics (differential equations, numerical methods, machine learning algorithms) to better understand biological processes such as immunological and endocrine responses to hormone dysregulation. I am currently working under the supervision of Professor Joe DiStefano III to mathematically model autoimmune diseases of the thyroid such as Graves’ Disease and Hashimoto’s Disease.
Apeksha Singh
Entered program in 2020
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I am an MD/Ph.D. student interested in developing mathematical models of biological systems and leveraging such models to understand how systems change in pathological conditions. I currently work with Dr. Alexander Hoffmann to better understand signaling dynamics in immune cells and fate regulation in hematopoiesis.
Jianxiao Yang
Entered program in 2018
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I work with Prof. Marc Suchard on large-scale observational studies. I study statistical computing on GLMs for harnessing large-scale observational health data.
Gary Zhou
Entered program in 2019
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I am interested in mathematical modeling in various biological areas such as neuroscience, cellular/subcellular process and blood flow. Specifically, I want to study these phenomena with a diverse range of mathematical tools including SDE, PDE, discrete math and optimization.