Dr. Eugenio Aulisa
Ph.D. 2005 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical Physics, Numerical Analysis, and Partial Differential Equations
Dr. Eugenio Aulisa graduated in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2001 and obtained his Ph.D. in Energetic, Nuclear and Environmental Control Engineering from the same institution in 2005. His first appointment at Texas Tech was as a Visiting Assistant Professor before entering a tenure-track position in 2007.
His primary research interests are in Computational fluid mechanics,
including modeling and simulation of multiphase flows and fluid-structure interaction problems,
non-linear analysis of fluid flow filtration in porous media, and
multigrid solvers with domain decomposition methods.
Dr. Giorgio Bornia
Ph.D. 2012 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: optimal control; numerical analysis; scientific computing; fluid dynamics; Applied Mathematics; Differential Equations; Mathematical Physics
Dr. Giorgio Bornia earned his Ph.D. from the University of Bologna in 2012. He joined Texas Tech with a visiting position in Fall 2012 and was appointed assistant professor in Fall 2013.
His research interests include: optimal control for partial differential equations; multi-physics problems in fluid dynamics, such as magnetohydrodynamics and fluid-structure interaction; finite element multigrid and domain decomposition methods; scientific computing.
Dr. Lars Christensen
Ph.D. 1999 University of Copenhagen
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebra
Lars Winther Christensen graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 1995 and obtained his Ph.D. from the same institution in 1999. After this he worked with telecommunications and crypto software development. In 2004 Lars went to University of Nebraska as visiting professor, and in 2007 he joined Texas Tech University.
Lars' research is in algebra; his interests focus on applications of homological and homotopical algebra to ring theory. Lars is the author of a monograph on Gorenstein homological dimensions and currently writing another book on derived category methods in commutative algebra.
Dr. Suddhasattwa Das
Ph.D. 2015 University of Maryland
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Dynamical Systems, Data Analysis, Learning Theory, Harmonic Analysis, Category Theory
Dr. Suddhasattwa Das received his Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from University of Maryland at College Park. His training is in dynamical systems and ergodic theory. He explores connections between several different fields such as dynamical systems, data analysis, learning theory, harmonic analysis and category theory. He has developed Julia codes, and likes to develop numerical experiments. One of his hobbies is the interpretation of linguistics using category theory, especially for strongly context sensitive languages such as Bengali.
Dr. Leif Ellingson
Ph.D. 2011 Florida State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Statistics and Geometric Shape Analysis
Leif Ellingson joined the department as an assistant professor in the fall of 2011. Prior to this, he completed a Ph.D. in statistics at Florida State University in the summer of 2011 and an M.S. from the same institution in 2009. Previously, he received a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Maryland in 2007.
Dr. Ellingson's dissertation research was in shape analysis with a focus on computationally efficient nonparametric methodology in application to the study of planar contours and structural proteomics. In addition to expanding upon those projects, his current research interests include statistics on manifolds and sample spaces with manifold stratification, as well as statistical applications in bioinformatics and computational biology.
Dr. Razvan Gelca
Ph.D. 1997 University of Iowa
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Topology
Razvan Gelca received his Bachelor's Degree at University of Timisoara and his Master's Degree at University of Bucharest. After working for one year at the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, he went for doctoral studies at University of Iowa. After graduation he had a three-year postdoc at University of Michigan and then came to Texas Tech University.
Dr. Bijoy Ghosh
Ph.D. 1983 Harvard University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Bioinformatics, Control Theory, Geometry, and Mathematical Biology
Bijoy K. Ghosh received the B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS, Pilani, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, and the Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics from the Decision and Control Group of the Division of Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, in 1977, 1979, and 1983, respectively. From 1983 to 2006, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, as a professor, and directed the center for BioCybernetics and Intelligent Systems. Presently he is a Dick and Martha Brooks Endowed Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX.Bijoy received the American Automatic Control Council's Donald Eckman Award in 1988 in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field of Automatic Control. He received the United Nations Development Program Consultancy in India under the TOKTEN program in 1993, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science invitation fellowship for research in Japan in 1997. In the year 2000, he became a Fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineering for fundamental contributions to System Theory with applications to robust control, vision and multi sensor fusion.Bijoy is a member of the editorial board of The IEEE Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. He has held visiting academic positions at the Yale University, USA; Universita di Padova, Italy; Institut Mittag-Leffler and Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden; Tokyo Institute of Technology and Osaka University, Japan. He is a permanent visiting professor at the Tokyo Denki University, Saitama, Japan and Technical University of Munich, Germany.
Dr. Wei Guo
Ph.D. 2014 University of Houston
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Numerical Analysis, Scientific Computing, Computational Fluid Dynamics, and Plasma Simulations
Wei Guo received his Ph.D. degree in applied mathematics from the University of Houston in 2014. He was a visiting assistant professor at Michigan State University before joining Texas Tech University. His research involves developing and analyzing efficient and high order accurate numerical algorithms and their applications to various fields, such as fluid dynamics and plasma physics. His recent work focuses on high order semi-Lagrangian methods for transport problems and high order sparse grid schemes for high-dimensional partial differential equations.
Dr. Alastair Hamilton
Ph.D. 2005 Bristol University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebra, Geometry, Mathematical Physics, and Topology
Alastair Hamilton joined the mathematics department in the fall of 2010. Prior to this, he spent three years at the University of Connecticut as a postdoctoral fellow and a year at the Max Planck Institut fur Mathematic in Bonn, Germany. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Bristol in 2005 and his master's degree from the same institution in 2002. His research interests lie in algebra and topology. His research explores the connections between these areas and parts of mathematical physics, such as quantum field theory.
Dr. Raegan Higgins
Ph.D. 2008 University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Dynamic Equations, Ordinary Differential Equations, Time Scales, and Outreach Programs
Raegan Higginsâ research is in time scales; her interests focus on oscillation criteria for certain linear and nonlinear second order dynamic equations. She is also interested in applications of time scales to biology, economics, engineering, and statistics. Additionally, Dr. Higgins is involved in funded projects focused on STEM outreach with an emphasis in increasing minorities in STEM. She received her Bachelorâs Degree in Mathematics from Xavier University of Louisiana in 2002 and her Doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2008.
Dr. Luan Hoang
Ph.D. 2005 Texas A&M University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Partial Differential Equations
Luan T Hoang received his Bachelor's degrees in Mathematics and in Information Technology from National University, Hochiminh city, Vietnam, in 1997. He received his Master's degree from Arizona State University in 2000, and Ph.D. degree from Texas A&M University in 2005. His research interests are partial differential equations, dynamical systems and fluid dynamics.
Dr. Victoria Howle
Ph.D. 2001 Cornell University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Numerical Analysis
Victoria Howle's research is in applied mathematics with a focus mainly on numerical linear algebra. Her main research interests are currently in physics-based pre-conditioning for incompressible fluid flow problems, scalable preconditioners for implicit Runge-Kutta methods, and machine learning algorithms. Dr. Howle received her Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Cornell University in 2001, worked as a research mathematician at Sandia National Laboratories from 2000 to 2007, then joined the TTU mathematics department in 2007.
Dr. Juntao Huang
Ph.D. 2018 Tsinghua University, Beijing
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Machine Learning, PDEs, Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics
Dr. Juntao Huang obtained dual bachelor degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics in 2013, and a Ph.D. in Applied Math in 2018 from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Prior to joining Texas Tech University in 2022, he worked as a visiting assistant professor at Michigan State University. His research interests involve the design and analysis of numerical methods for partial differential equations (PDEs) and using machine learning to assist traditional scientific computing tasks. His recent work includes structure-preserving machine learning moment closures for kinetic models, adaptive sparse grid discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods and structure-preserving time discretizations for hyperbolic equations.
Dr. Ram Iyer
Ph.D. 1999 University of Maryland, College Park
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Analysis, Computational Mathematics, Control Theory, Geometry, Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Physics, Ordinary Differential Equations, and Signal Processing
Ram Iyer's research interests are very broad and encompass several areas. He is currently working on the design of contact lenses for patients with keratoconus. This project encompasses the areas of optics, low Reynolds number fluid dynamics, inverse problems, and some statistics. Some of his most enduring research areas include modeling, analysis, identification, and control of systems with hysteresis. Other research areas Dr. Iyer has worked on include optimal control of systems on Riemannian manifolds, inertial navigation systems for micro air vehicles based on insect vision, and trajectory planning problems for micro air vehicles.
Dr. Sophia Jang
Ph.D. 1990 Texas Tech University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics and Mathematical Biology
Sophia R.-J. Jang received her Ph.D. in 1990 from Texas Tech University. She joined Texas Tech as an associate professor in Fall of 2008. Before returning to Tech, she was a faculty member at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her main research activities are in mathematical biology and applied mathematics.
Dr. Lourdes Juan
Ph.D. 2000 University of Oklahoma
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Computer Algebra, Differential Algebra, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical Biology, Dynamical Systems, Symbolic Integration, Algorithmic Methods in Mathematics and Optimization
Lourdes Juan received an undergraduate degree with honors (Titulo de Oro) in Mathematics from the University of Havana in 1991. From 1991-1995 she worked first as a trainee and then as a research resident in the department of Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition of the Cuban Academy of Sciences. In 1995 she was granted the first student visa that the US government gave in Cuba since the 1960's to pursue doctoral studies at the University of Oklahoma. She graduated with a PhD in Mathematics in 2000 under the direction of Professor Andy Magid. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley during 2000-2001, and joined the Math Department of Texas Tech in the Fall of 2001 as an assistant professor. She is currently an associate professor with tenure.
Her research interests include the Galois Theory of differential and difference equations, algebraic groups and computer algebra.
Dr. Amanda Laubmeier
Ph.D. 2018 North Carolina State University
Office Hours:
- M 9:00 - 10:00 AM
- M 4:00 - 5:00 PM (Zoom)
Research Interests: Biomathematics
Amanda Laubmeier joined Texas Tech in 2020. Before that, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and received her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from North Carolina State University. She conducts research in population ecology, working closely with collaborators in the biological sciences. Her expertise is in developing mathematical models and leveraging empirical observations to address application-level concerns. She is particularly interested in insect communities and efficient use of ecological data. She is also involved with scientific outreach and mathematical inclusivity.
Dr. Arne Ledet
Ph.D. 1996 University of Copenhagen
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebra
Arne Ledet graduated from University of Copenhagen (Denmark) in 1992, and obtained his Ph.D. from the same institution in 1996. His subsequent postdoctoral employment included stays at Queen's University (Canada), MSRI (USA), Tokyo Metropolitan University (Japan), and University of Waterloo (Canada), before he came to Texas Tech in 2002 as Assistant Professor. His graduate and postgraduate work was in Galois theoretical embedding problems. Currently, his research is concerned with the related problem of constructing generic polynomials for Galois extensions. He is the co-author of a book on this subject, "Generic Polynomials" (with C. U. Jensen and N. Yui), published in 2002.
Dr. Jeffrey M Lee
Ph.D. 1987 University of California, Los Angeles
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Differential Geometry, Geometric Analysis
Jeffrey M. Lee received his B.S. from Brigham Young University in 1982 and his M.A. and Ph.D. from University of California (Los Angeles) in 1984 and 1987, resp. He came to Texas Tech as an assistant professor in 1990 and, in 1996, he was appointed as an associate professor.
Dr. W. Brent Lindquist
Ph.D. 1981 Cornell University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Oil Extraction is Matter of Mathematics, Physics, and Applied Math, Mathematical Finance
Dr Lindquist is the previous Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and an applied mathematician. His interests have included numerical methods for PDEs; flow in porous media; automated 3D image analysis for porous media, neuron, and fiber analyses; Riemann problems in 2D; hierarchy formation in social animal groups; and numerical solution of Feynman diagrams. He is a co-recipient of the Lee Segal prize from the Society of Mathematical Biology.
Dr. Ruiqi Liu
Ph.D. 2018 SUNY Binghamton
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Semi/Nonparametric Methods, Econometrics, Panel Data Models, Statistical Machine/Deep Learning, Graph Network Model
Ruiqi Liu joined the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech University in Fall 2020. He obtained his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Binghamton University in Spring 2018 and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis from Fall 2018 to Spring 2020. Before coming to the United States, Ruiqi received a dual Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Management from Sun Yat-sen University in 2013. Ruiqi's research lies in the interactions of statistics, econometrics, and machine/deep learning. He aims to provide provable statistical procedures to solve real-world problems. Ruiqi's recent work includes semi/nonparametric models, pattern recognition in panel data models, and classification problems.
Dr. Katharine Long
Ph.D. 1991 Princeton
Office Hours:
- MF 1:00 - 3:00 PM
- by Appointment
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, and Numerical Analysis
Dr. Long's research is in scientific computing: ranging from work on developing efficient mathematical algorithms for large scale simulation and optimization, to the design of advanced software architectures for high-performance simulation, to application of computational simulation to problems in physics, engineering, biology, and national defense.
Dr. Long joined Texas Tech in 2007 after nine years in the computational mathematics research department at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California. Previously, she worked in industry at Beam Technologies, was on the physics faculty at the State University of New York at Brockport, and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts. Her undergraduate degree is in astronomy from the University of Maryland. Her graduate study was at Princeton University where she received a PhD in theoretical astrophysics in 1991.
Dr. Dermot McCarthy
Ph.D. 2010 University College Dublin
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Number Theory and Special Functions
Dermot McCarthy joined the department in the fall of 2013. Prior to this, he spent three years in a visiting position at Texas A&M University. Dr. McCarthy received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from University College Dublin, Ireland, in 2010. His research interests lie in number theory and special functions with particular focus on automorphic forms, hypergeometric functions and properties of algebraic varieties.
Dr. Hongwei Mei
Ph.D. 2016 Wayne State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Stochastic Analysis, Stochastic Control and Optimization, Optimal Stopping
Dr. Hongwei Mei obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics in August 2016 from Wayne State University. He was a visiting assistant professor at the University of Central Florida (2016-2017) and the University of Kansas (2017-2020). Before joining TTU, he was a post-doc fellow in the Department of Statistics, Rice University. Dr. Mei is an applied probabilist, and his research interests include stochastic analysis, stochastic control and optimization, and optimal stopping. In those years, he has published several papers in SICON, SPA, JDE, ESAIM-COCV, etc.
Dr. Chris Monico
Ph.D. 2002 University of Notre Dame
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebra and Cryptography
Chris Monico received a B.S. in mathematics from Monmouth University, and the degrees of M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. For the academic year 2002 Chris was a postdoctoral researcher at Notre Dame, before coming to Texas Tech in 2003. Dr. Monico's research has been primarily concerned with cryptology and certain computational algebra and number theoretic problems.
Dr. Alvaro Pampano
Ph.D. 2018 University of the Basque Country
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Differential Geometry, Calculus of Variations
After receiving his Ph.D. in October 2018 from the University of the Basque Country, Alvaro Pampano spent two years as a Visiting Postdoctoral professor at Idaho State University and another two years as a Postdoctoral Teaching Scholar at Texas Tech University. His main mathematical research interests include the area of Differential Geometry. More specifically, he is interested in theoretical problems related to the Geometric Calculus of Variations for curves, surfaces and hypersurfaces immersed in several ambient spaces.
Dr. Dmitri Pavlov
Ph.D. 2011 University of California, Berkeley
Office Hours:
- T 2:30 - 3:00 PM (Online)
Research Interests: Homotopy Theory, Higher Differential Geometry, D-modules and Mixed Hodge Modules, Factorization Algebras, Functorial Quantum Field Theory, Tomita—Takesaki Theory
Dmitri Pavlov joined the department as an assistant professor in 2017. His research explores connections between quantum field theory, homotopy theory and higher category theory, and differential and algebraic geometry. It includes areas such as model categories and abstract homotopy theory, differential, equivariant, and twisted cohomology theories, motivic homotopy theory, D-modules and mixed Hodge modules, factorization algebras, functorial field theory, and Tomita-Takesaki theory.
Dr. Angela Peace
Ph.D. 2014 Arizona State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Mathematical Biology
Angela Peace received her PhD in Applied Mathematics from the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, Arizona State University in 2014. Prior to coming to TTU, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her research in Mathematical Biology provides quantitative and qualitative improvements in the predictive power of theoretical and computational population ecology. She uses dynamical systems theory and tools to develop, analyze, and interpret mathematical models of biological systems, spanning the fields of ecology, toxicology, and epidemiology.
Dr. Svetlozar Rachev
Ph.D. 1979 Lomonozov University, Moscow
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Finance, Econometrics, Probability, Statistics, and Actuarial Sciences
Dr. Zari Rachev joined the department as a Visiting Professor in Spring 2017, and as a Full Professor with Tenure Fall 2017. Prior to coming to Texas Tech he was the Co-Director of the Quantitative Finance Program at Stony Brook University. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Lomonosov University, Moscow, Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, October 12, 1979. Dr. Rachev studies Quantitative Finance, Econometrics, Probability, Statistics, and Actuarial Sciences. As of February 2018, Dr. Rachev's Google Scholar Profile shows 13,759 citations, and a h-index of 56.
Dr. Lawrence Schovanec
Ph.D. 1982 Indiana University
Research Interests: Solid Mechanics, Boundary Value Problems, Differential and Integral Equations
Lawrence Schovanec joined the faculty of Texas Tech University
in 1982. He received a B.S. degree from Phillips
University, a M.S. degree from Texas A&M University, and his
Ph.D. from Indiana University. He has been a professor of mathematics
since 1996 and he served as chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics from 1999 to 2008.
His early research dealt
mainly with solid mechanics with an emphasis on dynamic fracture of
elastic and viscoelastic materials. More recently his work has dealt
with control theoretic aspects of biological systems and hybrid
parameter models of biomechanical systems.
In 2008 he was appointed as the Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and
in 2010 as the Dean. In 2012, he was appointed as the Interim President of Texas Tech University. In 2013, he served as Interim Provost. He is currently serving as President of the University.
Dr. Alexander Solynin
Ph.D. 1985 Institute of Applied Mathematics & Mechanics, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Complex Analysis, Potential Theory, and Qualitative Theory of Partial Differential Equations
Alexander Solynin received his Diploma (with honors) in Mathematics in 1980 from the Kuban State University, Krasnodar, Russia and his Ph.D. in 1985 from the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Donetsk. From 1983 to 1989, he was an assistant professor of mathematics and from 1989 to 1990, an associate professor at the Kuban State University in Krasnodar, Russia. In 1990, Dr. Solynin joined the Steklov Institute of Mathematics at St. Petersburg, Russia, where he was a senior research fellow from 1993 to 2004. He came to Texas Tech University in Fall 2004 as an associate professor.
Dr. James Surles
Ph.D. 1999 University of South Carolina
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Statistics, Reliability and Survival Analysis, and Statistics
James G. Surles received B.S. degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from McNeese State University in 1995 and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of South Carolina in 1997 and 1999, respectively.
Dr. Surles came to Texas Tech University in 1999, where he is currently an Assistant Professor. His main research interests are Reliability and the Exponentiated Weibull and Burr type X lifetime models, but he also enjoys working with researchers from around Texas Tech on a variety of research projects.
Dr. Travis Thompson
Ph.D. 2013 Texas A&M University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Mathematical biology, Mathematical modeling, Numerical analysis, Scientific computing, Applied machine learning
Dr. Travis Thompson was a strategic hire at the rank of assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech effective Fall 2022. Prior to this, he received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Texas A&M University for work in numerical analysis and finite element methods with application to problems in computational fluid dynamics. Following his doctoral work, Dr. Thompson held postdoctoral fellowship positions in applied mathematics at Rice University, Simula Research Laboratory and Oxford University where he focused on numerical methods and mathematical modeling of neuropathology and the brain. His research focuses on the mathematical modeling of complex biological systems and the development, analysis and application of the numerical methods and data-driven scientific computing approaches enabling their study.
Dr. Magdalena Toda
Ph.D. 2000 University of Kansas
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Geometry, Integrable Systems, Mathematical Physics, and Non-Linear Partial Differential Equations
Magdalena Toda came to the Texas Tech University in 2001 as an Assistant Professor. Her main research interests are in differential geometry and related integrable systems. She is especially interested in geometric solutions of partial differential equations, in particular non-linear PDEs which arise from integrable systems. Fluid flows, studied from a geometric view point, represent one of her research interests since 2004. Appointed to Departmental Chair as of March 1, 2016.
Dr. Ignacio Tomas
Ph.D. 2015 University of Maryland
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics
Dr. Ignacio Tomas obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Maryland in 2015. Following his doctoral work on Numerical Analysis of PDE models describing ferrofluids, he took a Visiting Assistant Professor position at Texas A&M University (TAMU). Before joining TTU he held a postdoctoral position at Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, New Mexico). During his time at TAMU he developed non-variational schemes for hyperbolic systems of conservation laws with mathematically guaranteed properties. More recently he has worked in the analysis and development of numerical schemes for PDE models of electric charge transport, such as Euler-Poisson and Euler-Maxwell system of dense plasmas. Overall, his research focuses on the analysis, development, and implementation of physically motivated PDE-models and their respective numerical schemes.
Dr. Hung Tran
Ph.D. 2014 Cornell University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Differential Geometry, Minimal Surfaces, Einstein Structures, 4-D Manifolds, Ricci flow, Harnack inequalities, and Applications of Geometry in Math Bio and Data Science
From a small village in Vietnam, Hung Tran obtained his bachelor degree from Berea College in Kentucky and in 2014 received his PhD degree in mathematics from Cornell University. He was a visiting assistant professor at the University of California at Irvine before joining Texas Tech University in 2017. His research lies at the interface of geometry and analysis with potential applications to mathematical physics, math bio, and data science. In other words, he utilizes analytical techniques (aka PDE) to investigate geometric equilibrium configurations. His recent work focuses on generalized Willmore and minimal surfaces, Einstein structures, and spectral analysis.
Dr. Alex Trindade
Ph.D. 2000 Colorado State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Statistics
A. Alexandre Trindade earned a B.S. in Mathematics from the University
of Southampton (U.K.) in 1988. He left Europe shortly thereafter to
pursue graduate studies in the U.S., completing an M.A. in Mathematics
at the University of Oklahoma in 1992. He worked as a programmer for
the IBM Corporation in Dallas (Texas) for two years, before returning
to graduate school in 1995. In 2000 he received a Ph.D. in Statistics
from Colorado State University.
From 2000 to 2007, Dr. Trindade was an assistant professor in the
Department of Statistics at the University of Florida. He joined Texas
Tech's Department of Mathematics and Statistics in Fall 2007. His
main research interests include: time series; multivariate volatility
modeling; state-space models and longitudinal data; saddle point-based
bootstrap methodology and applications; asymptotic theory and
higher-order approximations.
His work on saddle point-based bootstrap has been funded by the
National Security Agency. Dr. Trindade has extensive consulting
experience; in 2003-04 he was the primary statistical consultant on a
reliability project with The Boeing Company funded by DARPA, and in
2005 was contracted by Encision, Inc., for a reliability study on
medical devices.
Dr. Dimitri Volchenkov
Ph.D. 1996 Saint Petersburg State University (Russia)
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Data Analysis
In 2007 in Marseille, France, Dr. Volchenkov was awarded l'Habilitation a diriger des recherches at the Centre de Physique Theorique, and habilitated at the University of Bielefeld in Germany in 2010. He is an applied mathematician working in the field of data analysis, stochastic non-linear dynamics, complexity and uncertainty in real-world systems. His interdisciplinary research agenda ranges from plasma turbulence and tsunami waves, to the distribution of urban poverty, human behavior and communication patterns, models of political and biological evolution, and decision-making under uncertainty.
Dr. Alex Wang
Ph.D. 1989 Arizona State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: System and Control Theory
Alex Wang received his B.S. and M.S. from Northwest Telecommunication Engineering Inst. (China) in 1982 and 1984, resp. He received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in 1989. He came to Texas Tech as a visiting assistant professor in 1989 and, in 2004, he was appointed as a professor.
Dr. Yifan Wang
Ph.D. 214 Louisiana Tech University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical modeling and programming, Biomathematics
Dr. Yifan Wang obtained his Ph.D. in Computational Analysis and Modeling in 2014 from Louisiana Tech University. He received postdoc training at the University of Houston and the University of California, Berkeley during 2014-2020. Before joining TTU, he was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine. His research focuses on numerical solutions to fluid-structure interaction problems, emphasizing biomedical-related applications. His expertise lies in computational mathematics, parallel computing, and machine learning.
Dr. David Weinberg
Ph.D. 1980 University of Wisconsin, Madison
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebraic Geometry
David Weinberg received his Bachelor's Degree from the University of Chicago in 1974 and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1980. He came to Texas Tech in 1980 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1986. He held appointments at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, CA in 1987, 1988, 1989, and 2004.
His original research area was Fourier Analysis, but since the late 1980's his research areas have been Real Algebraic Geometry and Singularities of Plane Algebraic Curves.
Dr. Brock Williams
Ph.D. 1999 University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Analysis, Complex Analysis, Geometry, and Outreach Programs
Brock Williams came to Texas Tech in 1999 after earning a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee and a B.S. from Mississippi State University.
Dr. Williams primary research interests are discrete conformal geometry and geometric function theory. In particular, he especially interested in the application of circle packing techniques to Riemann surfaces and quasiconformal maps. He is also involved in several funded projects involving STEM outreach and teacher preparation.
Dr. Fangyuan Zhang
Ph.D. 2015 Ohio State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Statistical Genetics and Epigenetics
Fangyuan Zhang joined the department as an assistant Professor in the fall of 2015. Prior to this, she received a B.S. degree in statistics at Beijing Normal University in China. In 2015, she received a PhD in Biostatistics from the Department of Statistics at The Ohio State University. Fangyuan Zhang's research interests are in statistical genetics and epigenetics. Her current research projects include developing parametric and nonparametric statistical methods to detect genomic imprinting and maternal effects under different study designs, and testing for association in a heterogeneous sample and its application to tumor clustering.
Dr. Wenjing Zhang
Ph.D. 2014 University of Western Ontario
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Biomath, Applied Mathematics
Wenjing Zhang investigates disease dynamics, including recurrence and multiple stability, in parameter space through bifurcation theory, geometric singular perturbation theory and scientific computation. Her paper "Viral Blips May Not Need a Trigger: How Transient Viremia Can Arise in Deterministic In-Host Models" was published in SIGEST section in SIAM Review in 2014.
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Dr. Eugenio Aulisa
Ph.D. 2005 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical Physics, Numerical Analysis, and Partial Differential Equations
Dr. Eugenio Aulisa graduated in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2001 and obtained his Ph.D. in Energetic, Nuclear and Environmental Control Engineering from the same institution in 2005. His first appointment at Texas Tech was as a Visiting Assistant Professor before entering a tenure-track position in 2007.
His primary research interests are in Computational fluid mechanics,
including modeling and simulation of multiphase flows and fluid-structure interaction problems,
non-linear analysis of fluid flow filtration in porous media, and
multigrid solvers with domain decomposition methods.
Dr. Giorgio Bornia
Ph.D. 2012 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: optimal control; numerical analysis; scientific computing; fluid dynamics; Applied Mathematics; Differential Equations; Mathematical Physics
Dr. Giorgio Bornia earned his Ph.D. from the University of Bologna in 2012. He joined Texas Tech with a visiting position in Fall 2012 and was appointed assistant professor in Fall 2013.
His research interests include: optimal control for partial differential equations; multi-physics problems in fluid dynamics, such as magnetohydrodynamics and fluid-structure interaction; finite element multigrid and domain decomposition methods; scientific computing.
Dr. Lars Christensen
Ph.D. 1999 University of Copenhagen
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebra
Lars Winther Christensen graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 1995 and obtained his Ph.D. from the same institution in 1999. After this he worked with telecommunications and crypto software development. In 2004 Lars went to University of Nebraska as visiting professor, and in 2007 he joined Texas Tech University.
Lars' research is in algebra; his interests focus on applications of homological and homotopical algebra to ring theory. Lars is the author of a monograph on Gorenstein homological dimensions and currently writing another book on derived category methods in commutative algebra.
Dr. Suddhasattwa Das
Ph.D. 2015 University of Maryland
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Dynamical Systems, Data Analysis, Learning Theory, Harmonic Analysis, Category Theory
Dr. Suddhasattwa Das received his Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from University of Maryland at College Park. His training is in dynamical systems and ergodic theory. He explores connections between several different fields such as dynamical systems, data analysis, learning theory, harmonic analysis and category theory. He has developed Julia codes, and likes to develop numerical experiments. One of his hobbies is the interpretation of linguistics using category theory, especially for strongly context sensitive languages such as Bengali.
Dr. Leif Ellingson
Ph.D. 2011 Florida State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Statistics and Geometric Shape Analysis
Leif Ellingson joined the department as an assistant professor in the fall of 2011. Prior to this, he completed a Ph.D. in statistics at Florida State University in the summer of 2011 and an M.S. from the same institution in 2009. Previously, he received a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Maryland in 2007.
Dr. Ellingson's dissertation research was in shape analysis with a focus on computationally efficient nonparametric methodology in application to the study of planar contours and structural proteomics. In addition to expanding upon those projects, his current research interests include statistics on manifolds and sample spaces with manifold stratification, as well as statistical applications in bioinformatics and computational biology.
Dr. Razvan Gelca
Ph.D. 1997 University of Iowa
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Topology
Razvan Gelca received his Bachelor's Degree at University of Timisoara and his Master's Degree at University of Bucharest. After working for one year at the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, he went for doctoral studies at University of Iowa. After graduation he had a three-year postdoc at University of Michigan and then came to Texas Tech University.
Dr. Bijoy Ghosh
Ph.D. 1983 Harvard University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Bioinformatics, Control Theory, Geometry, and Mathematical Biology
Bijoy K. Ghosh received the B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS, Pilani, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, and the Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics from the Decision and Control Group of the Division of Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, in 1977, 1979, and 1983, respectively. From 1983 to 2006, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, as a professor, and directed the center for BioCybernetics and Intelligent Systems. Presently he is a Dick and Martha Brooks Endowed Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX.Bijoy received the American Automatic Control Council's Donald Eckman Award in 1988 in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field of Automatic Control. He received the United Nations Development Program Consultancy in India under the TOKTEN program in 1993, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science invitation fellowship for research in Japan in 1997. In the year 2000, he became a Fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineering for fundamental contributions to System Theory with applications to robust control, vision and multi sensor fusion.Bijoy is a member of the editorial board of The IEEE Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. He has held visiting academic positions at the Yale University, USA; Universita di Padova, Italy; Institut Mittag-Leffler and Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden; Tokyo Institute of Technology and Osaka University, Japan. He is a permanent visiting professor at the Tokyo Denki University, Saitama, Japan and Technical University of Munich, Germany.
Dr. Wei Guo
Ph.D. 2014 University of Houston
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Numerical Analysis, Scientific Computing, Computational Fluid Dynamics, and Plasma Simulations
Wei Guo received his Ph.D. degree in applied mathematics from the University of Houston in 2014. He was a visiting assistant professor at Michigan State University before joining Texas Tech University. His research involves developing and analyzing efficient and high order accurate numerical algorithms and their applications to various fields, such as fluid dynamics and plasma physics. His recent work focuses on high order semi-Lagrangian methods for transport problems and high order sparse grid schemes for high-dimensional partial differential equations.
Dr. Alastair Hamilton
Ph.D. 2005 Bristol University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebra, Geometry, Mathematical Physics, and Topology
Alastair Hamilton joined the mathematics department in the fall of 2010. Prior to this, he spent three years at the University of Connecticut as a postdoctoral fellow and a year at the Max Planck Institut fur Mathematic in Bonn, Germany. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Bristol in 2005 and his master's degree from the same institution in 2002. His research interests lie in algebra and topology. His research explores the connections between these areas and parts of mathematical physics, such as quantum field theory.
Dr. Raegan Higgins
Ph.D. 2008 University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Dynamic Equations, Ordinary Differential Equations, Time Scales, and Outreach Programs
Raegan Higginsâ research is in time scales; her interests focus on oscillation criteria for certain linear and nonlinear second order dynamic equations. She is also interested in applications of time scales to biology, economics, engineering, and statistics. Additionally, Dr. Higgins is involved in funded projects focused on STEM outreach with an emphasis in increasing minorities in STEM. She received her Bachelorâs Degree in Mathematics from Xavier University of Louisiana in 2002 and her Doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2008.
Dr. Luan Hoang
Ph.D. 2005 Texas A&M University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Partial Differential Equations
Luan T Hoang received his Bachelor's degrees in Mathematics and in Information Technology from National University, Hochiminh city, Vietnam, in 1997. He received his Master's degree from Arizona State University in 2000, and Ph.D. degree from Texas A&M University in 2005. His research interests are partial differential equations, dynamical systems and fluid dynamics.
Dr. Victoria Howle
Ph.D. 2001 Cornell University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Numerical Analysis
Victoria Howle's research is in applied mathematics with a focus mainly on numerical linear algebra. Her main research interests are currently in physics-based pre-conditioning for incompressible fluid flow problems, scalable preconditioners for implicit Runge-Kutta methods, and machine learning algorithms. Dr. Howle received her Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Cornell University in 2001, worked as a research mathematician at Sandia National Laboratories from 2000 to 2007, then joined the TTU mathematics department in 2007.
Dr. Juntao Huang
Ph.D. 2018 Tsinghua University, Beijing
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Machine Learning, PDEs, Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics
Dr. Juntao Huang obtained dual bachelor degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics in 2013, and a Ph.D. in Applied Math in 2018 from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Prior to joining Texas Tech University in 2022, he worked as a visiting assistant professor at Michigan State University. His research interests involve the design and analysis of numerical methods for partial differential equations (PDEs) and using machine learning to assist traditional scientific computing tasks. His recent work includes structure-preserving machine learning moment closures for kinetic models, adaptive sparse grid discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods and structure-preserving time discretizations for hyperbolic equations.
Dr. Ram Iyer
Ph.D. 1999 University of Maryland, College Park
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Analysis, Computational Mathematics, Control Theory, Geometry, Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Physics, Ordinary Differential Equations, and Signal Processing
Ram Iyer's research interests are very broad and encompass several areas. He is currently working on the design of contact lenses for patients with keratoconus. This project encompasses the areas of optics, low Reynolds number fluid dynamics, inverse problems, and some statistics. Some of his most enduring research areas include modeling, analysis, identification, and control of systems with hysteresis. Other research areas Dr. Iyer has worked on include optimal control of systems on Riemannian manifolds, inertial navigation systems for micro air vehicles based on insect vision, and trajectory planning problems for micro air vehicles.
Dr. Sophia Jang
Ph.D. 1990 Texas Tech University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics and Mathematical Biology
Sophia R.-J. Jang received her Ph.D. in 1990 from Texas Tech University. She joined Texas Tech as an associate professor in Fall of 2008. Before returning to Tech, she was a faculty member at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her main research activities are in mathematical biology and applied mathematics.
Dr. Lourdes Juan
Ph.D. 2000 University of Oklahoma
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Computer Algebra, Differential Algebra, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical Biology, Dynamical Systems, Symbolic Integration, Algorithmic Methods in Mathematics and Optimization
Lourdes Juan received an undergraduate degree with honors (Titulo de Oro) in Mathematics from the University of Havana in 1991. From 1991-1995 she worked first as a trainee and then as a research resident in the department of Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition of the Cuban Academy of Sciences. In 1995 she was granted the first student visa that the US government gave in Cuba since the 1960's to pursue doctoral studies at the University of Oklahoma. She graduated with a PhD in Mathematics in 2000 under the direction of Professor Andy Magid. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley during 2000-2001, and joined the Math Department of Texas Tech in the Fall of 2001 as an assistant professor. She is currently an associate professor with tenure.
Her research interests include the Galois Theory of differential and difference equations, algebraic groups and computer algebra.
Dr. Amanda Laubmeier
Ph.D. 2018 North Carolina State University
Office Hours:
- M 9:00 - 10:00 AM
- M 4:00 - 5:00 PM (Zoom)
Research Interests: Biomathematics
Amanda Laubmeier joined Texas Tech in 2020. Before that, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and received her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from North Carolina State University. She conducts research in population ecology, working closely with collaborators in the biological sciences. Her expertise is in developing mathematical models and leveraging empirical observations to address application-level concerns. She is particularly interested in insect communities and efficient use of ecological data. She is also involved with scientific outreach and mathematical inclusivity.
Dr. Arne Ledet
Ph.D. 1996 University of Copenhagen
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebra
Arne Ledet graduated from University of Copenhagen (Denmark) in 1992, and obtained his Ph.D. from the same institution in 1996. His subsequent postdoctoral employment included stays at Queen's University (Canada), MSRI (USA), Tokyo Metropolitan University (Japan), and University of Waterloo (Canada), before he came to Texas Tech in 2002 as Assistant Professor. His graduate and postgraduate work was in Galois theoretical embedding problems. Currently, his research is concerned with the related problem of constructing generic polynomials for Galois extensions. He is the co-author of a book on this subject, "Generic Polynomials" (with C. U. Jensen and N. Yui), published in 2002.
Dr. Jeffrey M Lee
Ph.D. 1987 University of California, Los Angeles
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Differential Geometry, Geometric Analysis
Jeffrey M. Lee received his B.S. from Brigham Young University in 1982 and his M.A. and Ph.D. from University of California (Los Angeles) in 1984 and 1987, resp. He came to Texas Tech as an assistant professor in 1990 and, in 1996, he was appointed as an associate professor.
Dr. W. Brent Lindquist
Ph.D. 1981 Cornell University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Oil Extraction is Matter of Mathematics, Physics, and Applied Math, Mathematical Finance
Dr Lindquist is the previous Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and an applied mathematician. His interests have included numerical methods for PDEs; flow in porous media; automated 3D image analysis for porous media, neuron, and fiber analyses; Riemann problems in 2D; hierarchy formation in social animal groups; and numerical solution of Feynman diagrams. He is a co-recipient of the Lee Segal prize from the Society of Mathematical Biology.
Dr. Ruiqi Liu
Ph.D. 2018 SUNY Binghamton
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Semi/Nonparametric Methods, Econometrics, Panel Data Models, Statistical Machine/Deep Learning, Graph Network Model
Ruiqi Liu joined the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech University in Fall 2020. He obtained his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Binghamton University in Spring 2018 and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis from Fall 2018 to Spring 2020. Before coming to the United States, Ruiqi received a dual Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Management from Sun Yat-sen University in 2013. Ruiqi's research lies in the interactions of statistics, econometrics, and machine/deep learning. He aims to provide provable statistical procedures to solve real-world problems. Ruiqi's recent work includes semi/nonparametric models, pattern recognition in panel data models, and classification problems.
Dr. Katharine Long
Ph.D. 1991 Princeton
Office Hours:
- MF 1:00 - 3:00 PM
- by Appointment
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, and Numerical Analysis
Dr. Long's research is in scientific computing: ranging from work on developing efficient mathematical algorithms for large scale simulation and optimization, to the design of advanced software architectures for high-performance simulation, to application of computational simulation to problems in physics, engineering, biology, and national defense.
Dr. Long joined Texas Tech in 2007 after nine years in the computational mathematics research department at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California. Previously, she worked in industry at Beam Technologies, was on the physics faculty at the State University of New York at Brockport, and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts. Her undergraduate degree is in astronomy from the University of Maryland. Her graduate study was at Princeton University where she received a PhD in theoretical astrophysics in 1991.
Dr. Dermot McCarthy
Ph.D. 2010 University College Dublin
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Number Theory and Special Functions
Dermot McCarthy joined the department in the fall of 2013. Prior to this, he spent three years in a visiting position at Texas A&M University. Dr. McCarthy received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from University College Dublin, Ireland, in 2010. His research interests lie in number theory and special functions with particular focus on automorphic forms, hypergeometric functions and properties of algebraic varieties.
Dr. Hongwei Mei
Ph.D. 2016 Wayne State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Stochastic Analysis, Stochastic Control and Optimization, Optimal Stopping
Dr. Hongwei Mei obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics in August 2016 from Wayne State University. He was a visiting assistant professor at the University of Central Florida (2016-2017) and the University of Kansas (2017-2020). Before joining TTU, he was a post-doc fellow in the Department of Statistics, Rice University. Dr. Mei is an applied probabilist, and his research interests include stochastic analysis, stochastic control and optimization, and optimal stopping. In those years, he has published several papers in SICON, SPA, JDE, ESAIM-COCV, etc.
Dr. Chris Monico
Ph.D. 2002 University of Notre Dame
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebra and Cryptography
Chris Monico received a B.S. in mathematics from Monmouth University, and the degrees of M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. For the academic year 2002 Chris was a postdoctoral researcher at Notre Dame, before coming to Texas Tech in 2003. Dr. Monico's research has been primarily concerned with cryptology and certain computational algebra and number theoretic problems.
Dr. Alvaro Pampano
Ph.D. 2018 University of the Basque Country
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Differential Geometry, Calculus of Variations
After receiving his Ph.D. in October 2018 from the University of the Basque Country, Alvaro Pampano spent two years as a Visiting Postdoctoral professor at Idaho State University and another two years as a Postdoctoral Teaching Scholar at Texas Tech University. His main mathematical research interests include the area of Differential Geometry. More specifically, he is interested in theoretical problems related to the Geometric Calculus of Variations for curves, surfaces and hypersurfaces immersed in several ambient spaces.
Dr. Dmitri Pavlov
Ph.D. 2011 University of California, Berkeley
Office Hours:
- T 2:30 - 3:00 PM (Online)
Research Interests: Homotopy Theory, Higher Differential Geometry, D-modules and Mixed Hodge Modules, Factorization Algebras, Functorial Quantum Field Theory, Tomita—Takesaki Theory
Dmitri Pavlov joined the department as an assistant professor in 2017. His research explores connections between quantum field theory, homotopy theory and higher category theory, and differential and algebraic geometry. It includes areas such as model categories and abstract homotopy theory, differential, equivariant, and twisted cohomology theories, motivic homotopy theory, D-modules and mixed Hodge modules, factorization algebras, functorial field theory, and Tomita-Takesaki theory.
Dr. Angela Peace
Ph.D. 2014 Arizona State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Mathematical Biology
Angela Peace received her PhD in Applied Mathematics from the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, Arizona State University in 2014. Prior to coming to TTU, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her research in Mathematical Biology provides quantitative and qualitative improvements in the predictive power of theoretical and computational population ecology. She uses dynamical systems theory and tools to develop, analyze, and interpret mathematical models of biological systems, spanning the fields of ecology, toxicology, and epidemiology.
Dr. Svetlozar Rachev
Ph.D. 1979 Lomonozov University, Moscow
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Finance, Econometrics, Probability, Statistics, and Actuarial Sciences
Dr. Zari Rachev joined the department as a Visiting Professor in Spring 2017, and as a Full Professor with Tenure Fall 2017. Prior to coming to Texas Tech he was the Co-Director of the Quantitative Finance Program at Stony Brook University. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Lomonosov University, Moscow, Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, October 12, 1979. Dr. Rachev studies Quantitative Finance, Econometrics, Probability, Statistics, and Actuarial Sciences. As of February 2018, Dr. Rachev's Google Scholar Profile shows 13,759 citations, and a h-index of 56.
Dr. Lawrence Schovanec
Ph.D. 1982 Indiana University
Research Interests: Solid Mechanics, Boundary Value Problems, Differential and Integral Equations
Lawrence Schovanec joined the faculty of Texas Tech University
in 1982. He received a B.S. degree from Phillips
University, a M.S. degree from Texas A&M University, and his
Ph.D. from Indiana University. He has been a professor of mathematics
since 1996 and he served as chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics from 1999 to 2008.
His early research dealt
mainly with solid mechanics with an emphasis on dynamic fracture of
elastic and viscoelastic materials. More recently his work has dealt
with control theoretic aspects of biological systems and hybrid
parameter models of biomechanical systems.
In 2008 he was appointed as the Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and
in 2010 as the Dean. In 2012, he was appointed as the Interim President of Texas Tech University. In 2013, he served as Interim Provost. He is currently serving as President of the University.
Dr. Alexander Solynin
Ph.D. 1985 Institute of Applied Mathematics & Mechanics, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Complex Analysis, Potential Theory, and Qualitative Theory of Partial Differential Equations
Alexander Solynin received his Diploma (with honors) in Mathematics in 1980 from the Kuban State University, Krasnodar, Russia and his Ph.D. in 1985 from the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Donetsk. From 1983 to 1989, he was an assistant professor of mathematics and from 1989 to 1990, an associate professor at the Kuban State University in Krasnodar, Russia. In 1990, Dr. Solynin joined the Steklov Institute of Mathematics at St. Petersburg, Russia, where he was a senior research fellow from 1993 to 2004. He came to Texas Tech University in Fall 2004 as an associate professor.
Dr. James Surles
Ph.D. 1999 University of South Carolina
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Statistics, Reliability and Survival Analysis, and Statistics
James G. Surles received B.S. degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from McNeese State University in 1995 and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of South Carolina in 1997 and 1999, respectively.
Dr. Surles came to Texas Tech University in 1999, where he is currently an Assistant Professor. His main research interests are Reliability and the Exponentiated Weibull and Burr type X lifetime models, but he also enjoys working with researchers from around Texas Tech on a variety of research projects.
Dr. Travis Thompson
Ph.D. 2013 Texas A&M University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Mathematical biology, Mathematical modeling, Numerical analysis, Scientific computing, Applied machine learning
Dr. Travis Thompson was a strategic hire at the rank of assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech effective Fall 2022. Prior to this, he received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Texas A&M University for work in numerical analysis and finite element methods with application to problems in computational fluid dynamics. Following his doctoral work, Dr. Thompson held postdoctoral fellowship positions in applied mathematics at Rice University, Simula Research Laboratory and Oxford University where he focused on numerical methods and mathematical modeling of neuropathology and the brain. His research focuses on the mathematical modeling of complex biological systems and the development, analysis and application of the numerical methods and data-driven scientific computing approaches enabling their study.
Dr. Magdalena Toda
Ph.D. 2000 University of Kansas
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Geometry, Integrable Systems, Mathematical Physics, and Non-Linear Partial Differential Equations
Magdalena Toda came to the Texas Tech University in 2001 as an Assistant Professor. Her main research interests are in differential geometry and related integrable systems. She is especially interested in geometric solutions of partial differential equations, in particular non-linear PDEs which arise from integrable systems. Fluid flows, studied from a geometric view point, represent one of her research interests since 2004. Appointed to Departmental Chair as of March 1, 2016.
Dr. Ignacio Tomas
Ph.D. 2015 University of Maryland
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics
Dr. Ignacio Tomas obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Maryland in 2015. Following his doctoral work on Numerical Analysis of PDE models describing ferrofluids, he took a Visiting Assistant Professor position at Texas A&M University (TAMU). Before joining TTU he held a postdoctoral position at Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, New Mexico). During his time at TAMU he developed non-variational schemes for hyperbolic systems of conservation laws with mathematically guaranteed properties. More recently he has worked in the analysis and development of numerical schemes for PDE models of electric charge transport, such as Euler-Poisson and Euler-Maxwell system of dense plasmas. Overall, his research focuses on the analysis, development, and implementation of physically motivated PDE-models and their respective numerical schemes.
Dr. Hung Tran
Ph.D. 2014 Cornell University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Differential Geometry, Minimal Surfaces, Einstein Structures, 4-D Manifolds, Ricci flow, Harnack inequalities, and Applications of Geometry in Math Bio and Data Science
From a small village in Vietnam, Hung Tran obtained his bachelor degree from Berea College in Kentucky and in 2014 received his PhD degree in mathematics from Cornell University. He was a visiting assistant professor at the University of California at Irvine before joining Texas Tech University in 2017. His research lies at the interface of geometry and analysis with potential applications to mathematical physics, math bio, and data science. In other words, he utilizes analytical techniques (aka PDE) to investigate geometric equilibrium configurations. His recent work focuses on generalized Willmore and minimal surfaces, Einstein structures, and spectral analysis.
Dr. Alex Trindade
Ph.D. 2000 Colorado State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Statistics
A. Alexandre Trindade earned a B.S. in Mathematics from the University
of Southampton (U.K.) in 1988. He left Europe shortly thereafter to
pursue graduate studies in the U.S., completing an M.A. in Mathematics
at the University of Oklahoma in 1992. He worked as a programmer for
the IBM Corporation in Dallas (Texas) for two years, before returning
to graduate school in 1995. In 2000 he received a Ph.D. in Statistics
from Colorado State University.
From 2000 to 2007, Dr. Trindade was an assistant professor in the
Department of Statistics at the University of Florida. He joined Texas
Tech's Department of Mathematics and Statistics in Fall 2007. His
main research interests include: time series; multivariate volatility
modeling; state-space models and longitudinal data; saddle point-based
bootstrap methodology and applications; asymptotic theory and
higher-order approximations.
His work on saddle point-based bootstrap has been funded by the
National Security Agency. Dr. Trindade has extensive consulting
experience; in 2003-04 he was the primary statistical consultant on a
reliability project with The Boeing Company funded by DARPA, and in
2005 was contracted by Encision, Inc., for a reliability study on
medical devices.
Dr. Dimitri Volchenkov
Ph.D. 1996 Saint Petersburg State University (Russia)
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Data Analysis
In 2007 in Marseille, France, Dr. Volchenkov was awarded l'Habilitation a diriger des recherches at the Centre de Physique Theorique, and habilitated at the University of Bielefeld in Germany in 2010. He is an applied mathematician working in the field of data analysis, stochastic non-linear dynamics, complexity and uncertainty in real-world systems. His interdisciplinary research agenda ranges from plasma turbulence and tsunami waves, to the distribution of urban poverty, human behavior and communication patterns, models of political and biological evolution, and decision-making under uncertainty.
Dr. Alex Wang
Ph.D. 1989 Arizona State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: System and Control Theory
Alex Wang received his B.S. and M.S. from Northwest Telecommunication Engineering Inst. (China) in 1982 and 1984, resp. He received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in 1989. He came to Texas Tech as a visiting assistant professor in 1989 and, in 2004, he was appointed as a professor.
Dr. Yifan Wang
Ph.D. 214 Louisiana Tech University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical modeling and programming, Biomathematics
Dr. Yifan Wang obtained his Ph.D. in Computational Analysis and Modeling in 2014 from Louisiana Tech University. He received postdoc training at the University of Houston and the University of California, Berkeley during 2014-2020. Before joining TTU, he was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine. His research focuses on numerical solutions to fluid-structure interaction problems, emphasizing biomedical-related applications. His expertise lies in computational mathematics, parallel computing, and machine learning.
Dr. David Weinberg
Ph.D. 1980 University of Wisconsin, Madison
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebraic Geometry
David Weinberg received his Bachelor's Degree from the University of Chicago in 1974 and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1980. He came to Texas Tech in 1980 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1986. He held appointments at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, CA in 1987, 1988, 1989, and 2004.
His original research area was Fourier Analysis, but since the late 1980's his research areas have been Real Algebraic Geometry and Singularities of Plane Algebraic Curves.
Dr. Brock Williams
Ph.D. 1999 University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Analysis, Complex Analysis, Geometry, and Outreach Programs
Brock Williams came to Texas Tech in 1999 after earning a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee and a B.S. from Mississippi State University.
Dr. Williams primary research interests are discrete conformal geometry and geometric function theory. In particular, he especially interested in the application of circle packing techniques to Riemann surfaces and quasiconformal maps. He is also involved in several funded projects involving STEM outreach and teacher preparation.
Dr. Fangyuan Zhang
Ph.D. 2015 Ohio State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Statistical Genetics and Epigenetics
Fangyuan Zhang joined the department as an assistant Professor in the fall of 2015. Prior to this, she received a B.S. degree in statistics at Beijing Normal University in China. In 2015, she received a PhD in Biostatistics from the Department of Statistics at The Ohio State University. Fangyuan Zhang's research interests are in statistical genetics and epigenetics. Her current research projects include developing parametric and nonparametric statistical methods to detect genomic imprinting and maternal effects under different study designs, and testing for association in a heterogeneous sample and its application to tumor clustering.
Dr. Wenjing Zhang
Ph.D. 2014 University of Western Ontario
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Biomath, Applied Mathematics
Wenjing Zhang investigates disease dynamics, including recurrence and multiple stability, in parameter space through bifurcation theory, geometric singular perturbation theory and scientific computation. Her paper "Viral Blips May Not Need a Trigger: How Transient Viremia Can Arise in Deterministic In-Host Models" was published in SIGEST section in SIAM Review in 2014.
Dr. Eugenio Aulisa
Ph.D. 2005 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical Physics, Numerical Analysis, and Partial Differential Equations
Dr. Eugenio Aulisa graduated in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2001 and obtained his Ph.D. in Energetic, Nuclear and Environmental Control Engineering from the same institution in 2005. His first appointment at Texas Tech was as a Visiting Assistant Professor before entering a tenure-track position in 2007.
His primary research interests are in Computational fluid mechanics,
including modeling and simulation of multiphase flows and fluid-structure interaction problems,
non-linear analysis of fluid flow filtration in porous media, and
multigrid solvers with domain decomposition methods.
Dr. Giorgio Bornia
Ph.D. 2012 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: optimal control; numerical analysis; scientific computing; fluid dynamics; Applied Mathematics; Differential Equations; Mathematical Physics
Dr. Giorgio Bornia earned his Ph.D. from the University of Bologna in 2012. He joined Texas Tech with a visiting position in Fall 2012 and was appointed assistant professor in Fall 2013.
His research interests include: optimal control for partial differential equations; multi-physics problems in fluid dynamics, such as magnetohydrodynamics and fluid-structure interaction; finite element multigrid and domain decomposition methods; scientific computing.
Dr. Raegan Higgins
Ph.D. 2008 University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Dynamic Equations, Ordinary Differential Equations, Time Scales, and Outreach Programs
Raegan Higginsâ research is in time scales; her interests focus on oscillation criteria for certain linear and nonlinear second order dynamic equations. She is also interested in applications of time scales to biology, economics, engineering, and statistics. Additionally, Dr. Higgins is involved in funded projects focused on STEM outreach with an emphasis in increasing minorities in STEM. She received her Bachelorâs Degree in Mathematics from Xavier University of Louisiana in 2002 and her Doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2008.
Dr. Luan Hoang
Ph.D. 2005 Texas A&M University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Partial Differential Equations
Luan T Hoang received his Bachelor's degrees in Mathematics and in Information Technology from National University, Hochiminh city, Vietnam, in 1997. He received his Master's degree from Arizona State University in 2000, and Ph.D. degree from Texas A&M University in 2005. His research interests are partial differential equations, dynamical systems and fluid dynamics.
Dr. Ram Iyer
Ph.D. 1999 University of Maryland, College Park
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Analysis, Computational Mathematics, Control Theory, Geometry, Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Physics, Ordinary Differential Equations, and Signal Processing
Ram Iyer's research interests are very broad and encompass several areas. He is currently working on the design of contact lenses for patients with keratoconus. This project encompasses the areas of optics, low Reynolds number fluid dynamics, inverse problems, and some statistics. Some of his most enduring research areas include modeling, analysis, identification, and control of systems with hysteresis. Other research areas Dr. Iyer has worked on include optimal control of systems on Riemannian manifolds, inertial navigation systems for micro air vehicles based on insect vision, and trajectory planning problems for micro air vehicles.
Dr. Lawrence Schovanec
Ph.D. 1982 Indiana University
Research Interests: Solid Mechanics, Boundary Value Problems, Differential and Integral Equations
Lawrence Schovanec joined the faculty of Texas Tech University
in 1982. He received a B.S. degree from Phillips
University, a M.S. degree from Texas A&M University, and his
Ph.D. from Indiana University. He has been a professor of mathematics
since 1996 and he served as chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics from 1999 to 2008.
His early research dealt
mainly with solid mechanics with an emphasis on dynamic fracture of
elastic and viscoelastic materials. More recently his work has dealt
with control theoretic aspects of biological systems and hybrid
parameter models of biomechanical systems.
In 2008 he was appointed as the Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and
in 2010 as the Dean. In 2012, he was appointed as the Interim President of Texas Tech University. In 2013, he served as Interim Provost. He is currently serving as President of the University.
Dr. Alexander Solynin
Ph.D. 1985 Institute of Applied Mathematics & Mechanics, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Complex Analysis, Potential Theory, and Qualitative Theory of Partial Differential Equations
Alexander Solynin received his Diploma (with honors) in Mathematics in 1980 from the Kuban State University, Krasnodar, Russia and his Ph.D. in 1985 from the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Donetsk. From 1983 to 1989, he was an assistant professor of mathematics and from 1989 to 1990, an associate professor at the Kuban State University in Krasnodar, Russia. In 1990, Dr. Solynin joined the Steklov Institute of Mathematics at St. Petersburg, Russia, where he was a senior research fellow from 1993 to 2004. He came to Texas Tech University in Fall 2004 as an associate professor.
Dr. Magdalena Toda
Ph.D. 2000 University of Kansas
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Geometry, Integrable Systems, Mathematical Physics, and Non-Linear Partial Differential Equations
Magdalena Toda came to the Texas Tech University in 2001 as an Assistant Professor. Her main research interests are in differential geometry and related integrable systems. She is especially interested in geometric solutions of partial differential equations, in particular non-linear PDEs which arise from integrable systems. Fluid flows, studied from a geometric view point, represent one of her research interests since 2004. Appointed to Departmental Chair as of March 1, 2016.
Dr. Hung Tran
Ph.D. 2014 Cornell University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Differential Geometry, Minimal Surfaces, Einstein Structures, 4-D Manifolds, Ricci flow, Harnack inequalities, and Applications of Geometry in Math Bio and Data Science
From a small village in Vietnam, Hung Tran obtained his bachelor degree from Berea College in Kentucky and in 2014 received his PhD degree in mathematics from Cornell University. He was a visiting assistant professor at the University of California at Irvine before joining Texas Tech University in 2017. His research lies at the interface of geometry and analysis with potential applications to mathematical physics, math bio, and data science. In other words, he utilizes analytical techniques (aka PDE) to investigate geometric equilibrium configurations. His recent work focuses on generalized Willmore and minimal surfaces, Einstein structures, and spectral analysis.
Dr. Lars Christensen
Ph.D. 1999 University of Copenhagen
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebra
Lars Winther Christensen graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 1995 and obtained his Ph.D. from the same institution in 1999. After this he worked with telecommunications and crypto software development. In 2004 Lars went to University of Nebraska as visiting professor, and in 2007 he joined Texas Tech University.
Lars' research is in algebra; his interests focus on applications of homological and homotopical algebra to ring theory. Lars is the author of a monograph on Gorenstein homological dimensions and currently writing another book on derived category methods in commutative algebra.
Dr. Alastair Hamilton
Ph.D. 2005 Bristol University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebra, Geometry, Mathematical Physics, and Topology
Alastair Hamilton joined the mathematics department in the fall of 2010. Prior to this, he spent three years at the University of Connecticut as a postdoctoral fellow and a year at the Max Planck Institut fur Mathematic in Bonn, Germany. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Bristol in 2005 and his master's degree from the same institution in 2002. His research interests lie in algebra and topology. His research explores the connections between these areas and parts of mathematical physics, such as quantum field theory.
Dr. Lourdes Juan
Ph.D. 2000 University of Oklahoma
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Computer Algebra, Differential Algebra, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical Biology, Dynamical Systems, Symbolic Integration, Algorithmic Methods in Mathematics and Optimization
Lourdes Juan received an undergraduate degree with honors (Titulo de Oro) in Mathematics from the University of Havana in 1991. From 1991-1995 she worked first as a trainee and then as a research resident in the department of Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition of the Cuban Academy of Sciences. In 1995 she was granted the first student visa that the US government gave in Cuba since the 1960's to pursue doctoral studies at the University of Oklahoma. She graduated with a PhD in Mathematics in 2000 under the direction of Professor Andy Magid. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley during 2000-2001, and joined the Math Department of Texas Tech in the Fall of 2001 as an assistant professor. She is currently an associate professor with tenure.
Her research interests include the Galois Theory of differential and difference equations, algebraic groups and computer algebra.
Dr. Arne Ledet
Ph.D. 1996 University of Copenhagen
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebra
Arne Ledet graduated from University of Copenhagen (Denmark) in 1992, and obtained his Ph.D. from the same institution in 1996. His subsequent postdoctoral employment included stays at Queen's University (Canada), MSRI (USA), Tokyo Metropolitan University (Japan), and University of Waterloo (Canada), before he came to Texas Tech in 2002 as Assistant Professor. His graduate and postgraduate work was in Galois theoretical embedding problems. Currently, his research is concerned with the related problem of constructing generic polynomials for Galois extensions. He is the co-author of a book on this subject, "Generic Polynomials" (with C. U. Jensen and N. Yui), published in 2002.
Dr. Chris Monico
Ph.D. 2002 University of Notre Dame
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebra and Cryptography
Chris Monico received a B.S. in mathematics from Monmouth University, and the degrees of M.S. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. For the academic year 2002 Chris was a postdoctoral researcher at Notre Dame, before coming to Texas Tech in 2003. Dr. Monico's research has been primarily concerned with cryptology and certain computational algebra and number theoretic problems.
Dr. Dmitri Pavlov
Ph.D. 2011 University of California, Berkeley
Office Hours:
- T 2:30 - 3:00 PM (Online)
Research Interests: Homotopy Theory, Higher Differential Geometry, D-modules and Mixed Hodge Modules, Factorization Algebras, Functorial Quantum Field Theory, Tomita—Takesaki Theory
Dmitri Pavlov joined the department as an assistant professor in 2017. His research explores connections between quantum field theory, homotopy theory and higher category theory, and differential and algebraic geometry. It includes areas such as model categories and abstract homotopy theory, differential, equivariant, and twisted cohomology theories, motivic homotopy theory, D-modules and mixed Hodge modules, factorization algebras, functorial field theory, and Tomita-Takesaki theory.
Dr. David Weinberg
Ph.D. 1980 University of Wisconsin, Madison
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebraic Geometry
David Weinberg received his Bachelor's Degree from the University of Chicago in 1974 and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1980. He came to Texas Tech in 1980 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1986. He held appointments at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, CA in 1987, 1988, 1989, and 2004.
His original research area was Fourier Analysis, but since the late 1980's his research areas have been Real Algebraic Geometry and Singularities of Plane Algebraic Curves.
Dr. Bijoy Ghosh
Ph.D. 1983 Harvard University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Bioinformatics, Control Theory, Geometry, and Mathematical Biology
Bijoy K. Ghosh received the B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS, Pilani, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, and the Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics from the Decision and Control Group of the Division of Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, in 1977, 1979, and 1983, respectively. From 1983 to 2006, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, as a professor, and directed the center for BioCybernetics and Intelligent Systems. Presently he is a Dick and Martha Brooks Endowed Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX.Bijoy received the American Automatic Control Council's Donald Eckman Award in 1988 in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field of Automatic Control. He received the United Nations Development Program Consultancy in India under the TOKTEN program in 1993, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science invitation fellowship for research in Japan in 1997. In the year 2000, he became a Fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineering for fundamental contributions to System Theory with applications to robust control, vision and multi sensor fusion.Bijoy is a member of the editorial board of The IEEE Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. He has held visiting academic positions at the Yale University, USA; Universita di Padova, Italy; Institut Mittag-Leffler and Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden; Tokyo Institute of Technology and Osaka University, Japan. He is a permanent visiting professor at the Tokyo Denki University, Saitama, Japan and Technical University of Munich, Germany.
Dr. Ram Iyer
Ph.D. 1999 University of Maryland, College Park
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Analysis, Computational Mathematics, Control Theory, Geometry, Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Physics, Ordinary Differential Equations, and Signal Processing
Ram Iyer's research interests are very broad and encompass several areas. He is currently working on the design of contact lenses for patients with keratoconus. This project encompasses the areas of optics, low Reynolds number fluid dynamics, inverse problems, and some statistics. Some of his most enduring research areas include modeling, analysis, identification, and control of systems with hysteresis. Other research areas Dr. Iyer has worked on include optimal control of systems on Riemannian manifolds, inertial navigation systems for micro air vehicles based on insect vision, and trajectory planning problems for micro air vehicles.
Dr. Sophia Jang
Ph.D. 1990 Texas Tech University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics and Mathematical Biology
Sophia R.-J. Jang received her Ph.D. in 1990 from Texas Tech University. She joined Texas Tech as an associate professor in Fall of 2008. Before returning to Tech, she was a faculty member at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her main research activities are in mathematical biology and applied mathematics.
Dr. Lourdes Juan
Ph.D. 2000 University of Oklahoma
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Computer Algebra, Differential Algebra, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical Biology, Dynamical Systems, Symbolic Integration, Algorithmic Methods in Mathematics and Optimization
Lourdes Juan received an undergraduate degree with honors (Titulo de Oro) in Mathematics from the University of Havana in 1991. From 1991-1995 she worked first as a trainee and then as a research resident in the department of Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition of the Cuban Academy of Sciences. In 1995 she was granted the first student visa that the US government gave in Cuba since the 1960's to pursue doctoral studies at the University of Oklahoma. She graduated with a PhD in Mathematics in 2000 under the direction of Professor Andy Magid. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley during 2000-2001, and joined the Math Department of Texas Tech in the Fall of 2001 as an assistant professor. She is currently an associate professor with tenure.
Her research interests include the Galois Theory of differential and difference equations, algebraic groups and computer algebra.
Dr. Amanda Laubmeier
Ph.D. 2018 North Carolina State University
Office Hours:
- M 9:00 - 10:00 AM
- M 4:00 - 5:00 PM (Zoom)
Research Interests: Biomathematics
Amanda Laubmeier joined Texas Tech in 2020. Before that, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and received her Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from North Carolina State University. She conducts research in population ecology, working closely with collaborators in the biological sciences. Her expertise is in developing mathematical models and leveraging empirical observations to address application-level concerns. She is particularly interested in insect communities and efficient use of ecological data. She is also involved with scientific outreach and mathematical inclusivity.
Dr. Angela Peace
Ph.D. 2014 Arizona State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Mathematical Biology
Angela Peace received her PhD in Applied Mathematics from the School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences, Arizona State University in 2014. Prior to coming to TTU, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her research in Mathematical Biology provides quantitative and qualitative improvements in the predictive power of theoretical and computational population ecology. She uses dynamical systems theory and tools to develop, analyze, and interpret mathematical models of biological systems, spanning the fields of ecology, toxicology, and epidemiology.
Dr. Travis Thompson
Ph.D. 2013 Texas A&M University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Mathematical biology, Mathematical modeling, Numerical analysis, Scientific computing, Applied machine learning
Dr. Travis Thompson was a strategic hire at the rank of assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech effective Fall 2022. Prior to this, he received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Texas A&M University for work in numerical analysis and finite element methods with application to problems in computational fluid dynamics. Following his doctoral work, Dr. Thompson held postdoctoral fellowship positions in applied mathematics at Rice University, Simula Research Laboratory and Oxford University where he focused on numerical methods and mathematical modeling of neuropathology and the brain. His research focuses on the mathematical modeling of complex biological systems and the development, analysis and application of the numerical methods and data-driven scientific computing approaches enabling their study.
Dr. Hung Tran
Ph.D. 2014 Cornell University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Differential Geometry, Minimal Surfaces, Einstein Structures, 4-D Manifolds, Ricci flow, Harnack inequalities, and Applications of Geometry in Math Bio and Data Science
From a small village in Vietnam, Hung Tran obtained his bachelor degree from Berea College in Kentucky and in 2014 received his PhD degree in mathematics from Cornell University. He was a visiting assistant professor at the University of California at Irvine before joining Texas Tech University in 2017. His research lies at the interface of geometry and analysis with potential applications to mathematical physics, math bio, and data science. In other words, he utilizes analytical techniques (aka PDE) to investigate geometric equilibrium configurations. His recent work focuses on generalized Willmore and minimal surfaces, Einstein structures, and spectral analysis.
Dr. Yifan Wang
Ph.D. 214 Louisiana Tech University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical modeling and programming, Biomathematics
Dr. Yifan Wang obtained his Ph.D. in Computational Analysis and Modeling in 2014 from Louisiana Tech University. He received postdoc training at the University of Houston and the University of California, Berkeley during 2014-2020. Before joining TTU, he was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine. His research focuses on numerical solutions to fluid-structure interaction problems, emphasizing biomedical-related applications. His expertise lies in computational mathematics, parallel computing, and machine learning.
Dr. Wenjing Zhang
Ph.D. 2014 University of Western Ontario
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Biomath, Applied Mathematics
Wenjing Zhang investigates disease dynamics, including recurrence and multiple stability, in parameter space through bifurcation theory, geometric singular perturbation theory and scientific computation. Her paper "Viral Blips May Not Need a Trigger: How Transient Viremia Can Arise in Deterministic In-Host Models" was published in SIGEST section in SIAM Review in 2014.
Dr. Eugenio Aulisa
Ph.D. 2005 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical Physics, Numerical Analysis, and Partial Differential Equations
Dr. Eugenio Aulisa graduated in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2001 and obtained his Ph.D. in Energetic, Nuclear and Environmental Control Engineering from the same institution in 2005. His first appointment at Texas Tech was as a Visiting Assistant Professor before entering a tenure-track position in 2007.
His primary research interests are in Computational fluid mechanics,
including modeling and simulation of multiphase flows and fluid-structure interaction problems,
non-linear analysis of fluid flow filtration in porous media, and
multigrid solvers with domain decomposition methods.
Dr. Giorgio Bornia
Ph.D. 2012 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: optimal control; numerical analysis; scientific computing; fluid dynamics; Applied Mathematics; Differential Equations; Mathematical Physics
Dr. Giorgio Bornia earned his Ph.D. from the University of Bologna in 2012. He joined Texas Tech with a visiting position in Fall 2012 and was appointed assistant professor in Fall 2013.
His research interests include: optimal control for partial differential equations; multi-physics problems in fluid dynamics, such as magnetohydrodynamics and fluid-structure interaction; finite element multigrid and domain decomposition methods; scientific computing.
Dr. Suddhasattwa Das
Ph.D. 2015 University of Maryland
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Dynamical Systems, Data Analysis, Learning Theory, Harmonic Analysis, Category Theory
Dr. Suddhasattwa Das received his Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from University of Maryland at College Park. His training is in dynamical systems and ergodic theory. He explores connections between several different fields such as dynamical systems, data analysis, learning theory, harmonic analysis and category theory. He has developed Julia codes, and likes to develop numerical experiments. One of his hobbies is the interpretation of linguistics using category theory, especially for strongly context sensitive languages such as Bengali.
Dr. Leif Ellingson
Ph.D. 2011 Florida State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Statistics and Geometric Shape Analysis
Leif Ellingson joined the department as an assistant professor in the fall of 2011. Prior to this, he completed a Ph.D. in statistics at Florida State University in the summer of 2011 and an M.S. from the same institution in 2009. Previously, he received a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Maryland in 2007.
Dr. Ellingson's dissertation research was in shape analysis with a focus on computationally efficient nonparametric methodology in application to the study of planar contours and structural proteomics. In addition to expanding upon those projects, his current research interests include statistics on manifolds and sample spaces with manifold stratification, as well as statistical applications in bioinformatics and computational biology.
Dr. Wei Guo
Ph.D. 2014 University of Houston
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Numerical Analysis, Scientific Computing, Computational Fluid Dynamics, and Plasma Simulations
Wei Guo received his Ph.D. degree in applied mathematics from the University of Houston in 2014. He was a visiting assistant professor at Michigan State University before joining Texas Tech University. His research involves developing and analyzing efficient and high order accurate numerical algorithms and their applications to various fields, such as fluid dynamics and plasma physics. His recent work focuses on high order semi-Lagrangian methods for transport problems and high order sparse grid schemes for high-dimensional partial differential equations.
Dr. Victoria Howle
Ph.D. 2001 Cornell University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Numerical Analysis
Victoria Howle's research is in applied mathematics with a focus mainly on numerical linear algebra. Her main research interests are currently in physics-based pre-conditioning for incompressible fluid flow problems, scalable preconditioners for implicit Runge-Kutta methods, and machine learning algorithms. Dr. Howle received her Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Cornell University in 2001, worked as a research mathematician at Sandia National Laboratories from 2000 to 2007, then joined the TTU mathematics department in 2007.
Dr. Ram Iyer
Ph.D. 1999 University of Maryland, College Park
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Analysis, Computational Mathematics, Control Theory, Geometry, Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Physics, Ordinary Differential Equations, and Signal Processing
Ram Iyer's research interests are very broad and encompass several areas. He is currently working on the design of contact lenses for patients with keratoconus. This project encompasses the areas of optics, low Reynolds number fluid dynamics, inverse problems, and some statistics. Some of his most enduring research areas include modeling, analysis, identification, and control of systems with hysteresis. Other research areas Dr. Iyer has worked on include optimal control of systems on Riemannian manifolds, inertial navigation systems for micro air vehicles based on insect vision, and trajectory planning problems for micro air vehicles.
Dr. Jeffrey M Lee
Ph.D. 1987 University of California, Los Angeles
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Differential Geometry, Geometric Analysis
Jeffrey M. Lee received his B.S. from Brigham Young University in 1982 and his M.A. and Ph.D. from University of California (Los Angeles) in 1984 and 1987, resp. He came to Texas Tech as an assistant professor in 1990 and, in 1996, he was appointed as an associate professor.
Dr. Katharine Long
Ph.D. 1991 Princeton
Office Hours:
- MF 1:00 - 3:00 PM
- by Appointment
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, and Numerical Analysis
Dr. Long's research is in scientific computing: ranging from work on developing efficient mathematical algorithms for large scale simulation and optimization, to the design of advanced software architectures for high-performance simulation, to application of computational simulation to problems in physics, engineering, biology, and national defense.
Dr. Long joined Texas Tech in 2007 after nine years in the computational mathematics research department at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California. Previously, she worked in industry at Beam Technologies, was on the physics faculty at the State University of New York at Brockport, and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts. Her undergraduate degree is in astronomy from the University of Maryland. Her graduate study was at Princeton University where she received a PhD in theoretical astrophysics in 1991.
Dr. Hongwei Mei
Ph.D. 2016 Wayne State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Stochastic Analysis, Stochastic Control and Optimization, Optimal Stopping
Dr. Hongwei Mei obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics in August 2016 from Wayne State University. He was a visiting assistant professor at the University of Central Florida (2016-2017) and the University of Kansas (2017-2020). Before joining TTU, he was a post-doc fellow in the Department of Statistics, Rice University. Dr. Mei is an applied probabilist, and his research interests include stochastic analysis, stochastic control and optimization, and optimal stopping. In those years, he has published several papers in SICON, SPA, JDE, ESAIM-COCV, etc.
Dr. Alexander Solynin
Ph.D. 1985 Institute of Applied Mathematics & Mechanics, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Complex Analysis, Potential Theory, and Qualitative Theory of Partial Differential Equations
Alexander Solynin received his Diploma (with honors) in Mathematics in 1980 from the Kuban State University, Krasnodar, Russia and his Ph.D. in 1985 from the Institute of Applied Mathematics and Mechanics, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Donetsk. From 1983 to 1989, he was an assistant professor of mathematics and from 1989 to 1990, an associate professor at the Kuban State University in Krasnodar, Russia. In 1990, Dr. Solynin joined the Steklov Institute of Mathematics at St. Petersburg, Russia, where he was a senior research fellow from 1993 to 2004. He came to Texas Tech University in Fall 2004 as an associate professor.
Dr. James Surles
Ph.D. 1999 University of South Carolina
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Statistics, Reliability and Survival Analysis, and Statistics
James G. Surles received B.S. degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from McNeese State University in 1995 and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of South Carolina in 1997 and 1999, respectively.
Dr. Surles came to Texas Tech University in 1999, where he is currently an Assistant Professor. His main research interests are Reliability and the Exponentiated Weibull and Burr type X lifetime models, but he also enjoys working with researchers from around Texas Tech on a variety of research projects.
Dr. Travis Thompson
Ph.D. 2013 Texas A&M University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Mathematical biology, Mathematical modeling, Numerical analysis, Scientific computing, Applied machine learning
Dr. Travis Thompson was a strategic hire at the rank of assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech effective Fall 2022. Prior to this, he received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Texas A&M University for work in numerical analysis and finite element methods with application to problems in computational fluid dynamics. Following his doctoral work, Dr. Thompson held postdoctoral fellowship positions in applied mathematics at Rice University, Simula Research Laboratory and Oxford University where he focused on numerical methods and mathematical modeling of neuropathology and the brain. His research focuses on the mathematical modeling of complex biological systems and the development, analysis and application of the numerical methods and data-driven scientific computing approaches enabling their study.
Dr. Aaron Tyrrell
Ph.D. 2021 Notre Dame
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Geometric Analysis, Conformal Geometry
Dr. Aaron Tyrrell obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. from Maynooth University in his native Ireland before moving to the United States in 2016 to begin graduate school at the University of Notre Dame.  His doctoral thesis, titled âRenormalized Volume and Areaâ was completed in May 2021 under the supervision of Professor Matthew Gursky. Before starting a Lecturer position at Texas Tech in Fall 2022, he spent a year as a Research Associate at University of Texas at Dallas working with Dr. Stephen McKeown. His research interests currently lie in an area of geometric analysis related to the holographic study of conformal geometry initiated by Fefferman and Graham.
Dr. Dimitri Volchenkov
Ph.D. 1996 Saint Petersburg State University (Russia)
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Data Analysis
In 2007 in Marseille, France, Dr. Volchenkov was awarded l'Habilitation a diriger des recherches at the Centre de Physique Theorique, and habilitated at the University of Bielefeld in Germany in 2010. He is an applied mathematician working in the field of data analysis, stochastic non-linear dynamics, complexity and uncertainty in real-world systems. His interdisciplinary research agenda ranges from plasma turbulence and tsunami waves, to the distribution of urban poverty, human behavior and communication patterns, models of political and biological evolution, and decision-making under uncertainty.
Dr. Brock Williams
Ph.D. 1999 University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Analysis, Complex Analysis, Geometry, and Outreach Programs
Brock Williams came to Texas Tech in 1999 after earning a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee and a B.S. from Mississippi State University.
Dr. Williams primary research interests are discrete conformal geometry and geometric function theory. In particular, he especially interested in the application of circle packing techniques to Riemann surfaces and quasiconformal maps. He is also involved in several funded projects involving STEM outreach and teacher preparation.
Dr. Eugenio Aulisa
Ph.D. 2005 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical Physics, Numerical Analysis, and Partial Differential Equations
Dr. Eugenio Aulisa graduated in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2001 and obtained his Ph.D. in Energetic, Nuclear and Environmental Control Engineering from the same institution in 2005. His first appointment at Texas Tech was as a Visiting Assistant Professor before entering a tenure-track position in 2007.
His primary research interests are in Computational fluid mechanics,
including modeling and simulation of multiphase flows and fluid-structure interaction problems,
non-linear analysis of fluid flow filtration in porous media, and
multigrid solvers with domain decomposition methods.
Dr. Jeffrey Belding
Ph.D. 2021 University of Nevada Las Vegas
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Mathematical Physics
Jeffrey Belding received his Bachelor's degree in Pure Mathematics and Physics from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2015. He received his Ph.D. in Computational Mathematics from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2021 under the supervision of Professor Monika Neda. He also spent time as a Ph.D. student working as an intern for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, and later doing contract work with them after graduating with a Ph.D.
Dr. Giorgio Bornia
Ph.D. 2012 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: optimal control; numerical analysis; scientific computing; fluid dynamics; Applied Mathematics; Differential Equations; Mathematical Physics
Dr. Giorgio Bornia earned his Ph.D. from the University of Bologna in 2012. He joined Texas Tech with a visiting position in Fall 2012 and was appointed assistant professor in Fall 2013.
His research interests include: optimal control for partial differential equations; multi-physics problems in fluid dynamics, such as magnetohydrodynamics and fluid-structure interaction; finite element multigrid and domain decomposition methods; scientific computing.
Dr. Alastair Hamilton
Ph.D. 2005 Bristol University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebra, Geometry, Mathematical Physics, and Topology
Alastair Hamilton joined the mathematics department in the fall of 2010. Prior to this, he spent three years at the University of Connecticut as a postdoctoral fellow and a year at the Max Planck Institut fur Mathematic in Bonn, Germany. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Bristol in 2005 and his master's degree from the same institution in 2002. His research interests lie in algebra and topology. His research explores the connections between these areas and parts of mathematical physics, such as quantum field theory.
Dr. Ram Iyer
Ph.D. 1999 University of Maryland, College Park
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Analysis, Computational Mathematics, Control Theory, Geometry, Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Physics, Ordinary Differential Equations, and Signal Processing
Ram Iyer's research interests are very broad and encompass several areas. He is currently working on the design of contact lenses for patients with keratoconus. This project encompasses the areas of optics, low Reynolds number fluid dynamics, inverse problems, and some statistics. Some of his most enduring research areas include modeling, analysis, identification, and control of systems with hysteresis. Other research areas Dr. Iyer has worked on include optimal control of systems on Riemannian manifolds, inertial navigation systems for micro air vehicles based on insect vision, and trajectory planning problems for micro air vehicles.
Dr. W. Brent Lindquist
Ph.D. 1981 Cornell University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Oil Extraction is Matter of Mathematics, Physics, and Applied Math, Mathematical Finance
Dr Lindquist is the previous Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and an applied mathematician. His interests have included numerical methods for PDEs; flow in porous media; automated 3D image analysis for porous media, neuron, and fiber analyses; Riemann problems in 2D; hierarchy formation in social animal groups; and numerical solution of Feynman diagrams. He is a co-recipient of the Lee Segal prize from the Society of Mathematical Biology.
Dr. Magdalena Toda
Ph.D. 2000 University of Kansas
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Geometry, Integrable Systems, Mathematical Physics, and Non-Linear Partial Differential Equations
Magdalena Toda came to the Texas Tech University in 2001 as an Assistant Professor. Her main research interests are in differential geometry and related integrable systems. She is especially interested in geometric solutions of partial differential equations, in particular non-linear PDEs which arise from integrable systems. Fluid flows, studied from a geometric view point, represent one of her research interests since 2004. Appointed to Departmental Chair as of March 1, 2016.
Dr. Eugenio Aulisa
Ph.D. 2005 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical Physics, Numerical Analysis, and Partial Differential Equations
Dr. Eugenio Aulisa graduated in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2001 and obtained his Ph.D. in Energetic, Nuclear and Environmental Control Engineering from the same institution in 2005. His first appointment at Texas Tech was as a Visiting Assistant Professor before entering a tenure-track position in 2007.
His primary research interests are in Computational fluid mechanics,
including modeling and simulation of multiphase flows and fluid-structure interaction problems,
non-linear analysis of fluid flow filtration in porous media, and
multigrid solvers with domain decomposition methods.
Dr. Jeffrey Belding
Ph.D. 2021 University of Nevada Las Vegas
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Mathematical Physics
Jeffrey Belding received his Bachelor's degree in Pure Mathematics and Physics from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2015. He received his Ph.D. in Computational Mathematics from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2021 under the supervision of Professor Monika Neda. He also spent time as a Ph.D. student working as an intern for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, and later doing contract work with them after graduating with a Ph.D.
Dr. Giorgio Bornia
Ph.D. 2012 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: optimal control; numerical analysis; scientific computing; fluid dynamics; Applied Mathematics; Differential Equations; Mathematical Physics
Dr. Giorgio Bornia earned his Ph.D. from the University of Bologna in 2012. He joined Texas Tech with a visiting position in Fall 2012 and was appointed assistant professor in Fall 2013.
His research interests include: optimal control for partial differential equations; multi-physics problems in fluid dynamics, such as magnetohydrodynamics and fluid-structure interaction; finite element multigrid and domain decomposition methods; scientific computing.
Dr. Andrea Chierici
Ph.D. 2021 Università di Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics; Computational Mathematics; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Optimal Control
Andrea Chierici received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Energy Engineering from the University of Bologna in 2014 and 2017, respectively. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Bologna in 2021 under the supervision of Professor Sandro Manservisi. He then spent one year as a Post Doc at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Bologna. Andrea joined Texas Tech as a Post Doc in Spring 2022.
Dr. Wei Guo
Ph.D. 2014 University of Houston
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Numerical Analysis, Scientific Computing, Computational Fluid Dynamics, and Plasma Simulations
Wei Guo received his Ph.D. degree in applied mathematics from the University of Houston in 2014. He was a visiting assistant professor at Michigan State University before joining Texas Tech University. His research involves developing and analyzing efficient and high order accurate numerical algorithms and their applications to various fields, such as fluid dynamics and plasma physics. His recent work focuses on high order semi-Lagrangian methods for transport problems and high order sparse grid schemes for high-dimensional partial differential equations.
Dr. Victoria Howle
Ph.D. 2001 Cornell University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Numerical Analysis
Victoria Howle's research is in applied mathematics with a focus mainly on numerical linear algebra. Her main research interests are currently in physics-based pre-conditioning for incompressible fluid flow problems, scalable preconditioners for implicit Runge-Kutta methods, and machine learning algorithms. Dr. Howle received her Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Cornell University in 2001, worked as a research mathematician at Sandia National Laboratories from 2000 to 2007, then joined the TTU mathematics department in 2007.
Dr. Juntao Huang
Ph.D. 2018 Tsinghua University, Beijing
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Machine Learning, PDEs, Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics
Dr. Juntao Huang obtained dual bachelor degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics in 2013, and a Ph.D. in Applied Math in 2018 from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Prior to joining Texas Tech University in 2022, he worked as a visiting assistant professor at Michigan State University. His research interests involve the design and analysis of numerical methods for partial differential equations (PDEs) and using machine learning to assist traditional scientific computing tasks. His recent work includes structure-preserving machine learning moment closures for kinetic models, adaptive sparse grid discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods and structure-preserving time discretizations for hyperbolic equations.
Dr. Ram Iyer
Ph.D. 1999 University of Maryland, College Park
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Analysis, Computational Mathematics, Control Theory, Geometry, Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Physics, Ordinary Differential Equations, and Signal Processing
Ram Iyer's research interests are very broad and encompass several areas. He is currently working on the design of contact lenses for patients with keratoconus. This project encompasses the areas of optics, low Reynolds number fluid dynamics, inverse problems, and some statistics. Some of his most enduring research areas include modeling, analysis, identification, and control of systems with hysteresis. Other research areas Dr. Iyer has worked on include optimal control of systems on Riemannian manifolds, inertial navigation systems for micro air vehicles based on insect vision, and trajectory planning problems for micro air vehicles.
Dr. Lourdes Juan
Ph.D. 2000 University of Oklahoma
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Computer Algebra, Differential Algebra, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical Biology, Dynamical Systems, Symbolic Integration, Algorithmic Methods in Mathematics and Optimization
Lourdes Juan received an undergraduate degree with honors (Titulo de Oro) in Mathematics from the University of Havana in 1991. From 1991-1995 she worked first as a trainee and then as a research resident in the department of Artificial Intelligence and Pattern Recognition of the Cuban Academy of Sciences. In 1995 she was granted the first student visa that the US government gave in Cuba since the 1960's to pursue doctoral studies at the University of Oklahoma. She graduated with a PhD in Mathematics in 2000 under the direction of Professor Andy Magid. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley during 2000-2001, and joined the Math Department of Texas Tech in the Fall of 2001 as an assistant professor. She is currently an associate professor with tenure.
Her research interests include the Galois Theory of differential and difference equations, algebraic groups and computer algebra.
Dr. Katharine Long
Ph.D. 1991 Princeton
Office Hours:
- MF 1:00 - 3:00 PM
- by Appointment
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, and Numerical Analysis
Dr. Long's research is in scientific computing: ranging from work on developing efficient mathematical algorithms for large scale simulation and optimization, to the design of advanced software architectures for high-performance simulation, to application of computational simulation to problems in physics, engineering, biology, and national defense.
Dr. Long joined Texas Tech in 2007 after nine years in the computational mathematics research department at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California. Previously, she worked in industry at Beam Technologies, was on the physics faculty at the State University of New York at Brockport, and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts. Her undergraduate degree is in astronomy from the University of Maryland. Her graduate study was at Princeton University where she received a PhD in theoretical astrophysics in 1991.
Dr. Travis Thompson
Ph.D. 2013 Texas A&M University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Mathematical biology, Mathematical modeling, Numerical analysis, Scientific computing, Applied machine learning
Dr. Travis Thompson was a strategic hire at the rank of assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech effective Fall 2022. Prior to this, he received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Texas A&M University for work in numerical analysis and finite element methods with application to problems in computational fluid dynamics. Following his doctoral work, Dr. Thompson held postdoctoral fellowship positions in applied mathematics at Rice University, Simula Research Laboratory and Oxford University where he focused on numerical methods and mathematical modeling of neuropathology and the brain. His research focuses on the mathematical modeling of complex biological systems and the development, analysis and application of the numerical methods and data-driven scientific computing approaches enabling their study.
Dr. Ignacio Tomas
Ph.D. 2015 University of Maryland
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics
Dr. Ignacio Tomas obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Maryland in 2015. Following his doctoral work on Numerical Analysis of PDE models describing ferrofluids, he took a Visiting Assistant Professor position at Texas A&M University (TAMU). Before joining TTU he held a postdoctoral position at Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, New Mexico). During his time at TAMU he developed non-variational schemes for hyperbolic systems of conservation laws with mathematically guaranteed properties. More recently he has worked in the analysis and development of numerical schemes for PDE models of electric charge transport, such as Euler-Poisson and Euler-Maxwell system of dense plasmas. Overall, his research focuses on the analysis, development, and implementation of physically motivated PDE-models and their respective numerical schemes.
Dr. Yifan Wang
Ph.D. 214 Louisiana Tech University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical modeling and programming, Biomathematics
Dr. Yifan Wang obtained his Ph.D. in Computational Analysis and Modeling in 2014 from Louisiana Tech University. He received postdoc training at the University of Houston and the University of California, Berkeley during 2014-2020. Before joining TTU, he was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine. His research focuses on numerical solutions to fluid-structure interaction problems, emphasizing biomedical-related applications. His expertise lies in computational mathematics, parallel computing, and machine learning.
Dr. Leif Ellingson
Ph.D. 2011 Florida State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Statistics and Geometric Shape Analysis
Leif Ellingson joined the department as an assistant professor in the fall of 2011. Prior to this, he completed a Ph.D. in statistics at Florida State University in the summer of 2011 and an M.S. from the same institution in 2009. Previously, he received a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Maryland in 2007.
Dr. Ellingson's dissertation research was in shape analysis with a focus on computationally efficient nonparametric methodology in application to the study of planar contours and structural proteomics. In addition to expanding upon those projects, his current research interests include statistics on manifolds and sample spaces with manifold stratification, as well as statistical applications in bioinformatics and computational biology.
Dr. Ruiqi Liu
Ph.D. 2018 SUNY Binghamton
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Semi/Nonparametric Methods, Econometrics, Panel Data Models, Statistical Machine/Deep Learning, Graph Network Model
Ruiqi Liu joined the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech University in Fall 2020. He obtained his Ph.D. in Mathematics from Binghamton University in Spring 2018 and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis from Fall 2018 to Spring 2020. Before coming to the United States, Ruiqi received a dual Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Management from Sun Yat-sen University in 2013. Ruiqi's research lies in the interactions of statistics, econometrics, and machine/deep learning. He aims to provide provable statistical procedures to solve real-world problems. Ruiqi's recent work includes semi/nonparametric models, pattern recognition in panel data models, and classification problems.
Dr. Svetlozar Rachev
Ph.D. 1979 Lomonozov University, Moscow
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Finance, Econometrics, Probability, Statistics, and Actuarial Sciences
Dr. Zari Rachev joined the department as a Visiting Professor in Spring 2017, and as a Full Professor with Tenure Fall 2017. Prior to coming to Texas Tech he was the Co-Director of the Quantitative Finance Program at Stony Brook University. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Lomonosov University, Moscow, Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, October 12, 1979. Dr. Rachev studies Quantitative Finance, Econometrics, Probability, Statistics, and Actuarial Sciences. As of February 2018, Dr. Rachev's Google Scholar Profile shows 13,759 citations, and a h-index of 56.
Dr. James Surles
Ph.D. 1999 University of South Carolina
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Statistics, Reliability and Survival Analysis, and Statistics
James G. Surles received B.S. degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from McNeese State University in 1995 and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of South Carolina in 1997 and 1999, respectively.
Dr. Surles came to Texas Tech University in 1999, where he is currently an Assistant Professor. His main research interests are Reliability and the Exponentiated Weibull and Burr type X lifetime models, but he also enjoys working with researchers from around Texas Tech on a variety of research projects.
Dr. Alex Trindade
Ph.D. 2000 Colorado State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Statistics
A. Alexandre Trindade earned a B.S. in Mathematics from the University
of Southampton (U.K.) in 1988. He left Europe shortly thereafter to
pursue graduate studies in the U.S., completing an M.A. in Mathematics
at the University of Oklahoma in 1992. He worked as a programmer for
the IBM Corporation in Dallas (Texas) for two years, before returning
to graduate school in 1995. In 2000 he received a Ph.D. in Statistics
from Colorado State University.
From 2000 to 2007, Dr. Trindade was an assistant professor in the
Department of Statistics at the University of Florida. He joined Texas
Tech's Department of Mathematics and Statistics in Fall 2007. His
main research interests include: time series; multivariate volatility
modeling; state-space models and longitudinal data; saddle point-based
bootstrap methodology and applications; asymptotic theory and
higher-order approximations.
His work on saddle point-based bootstrap has been funded by the
National Security Agency. Dr. Trindade has extensive consulting
experience; in 2003-04 he was the primary statistical consultant on a
reliability project with The Boeing Company funded by DARPA, and in
2005 was contracted by Encision, Inc., for a reliability study on
medical devices.
Dr. Fangyuan Zhang
Ph.D. 2015 Ohio State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Statistical Genetics and Epigenetics
Fangyuan Zhang joined the department as an assistant Professor in the fall of 2015. Prior to this, she received a B.S. degree in statistics at Beijing Normal University in China. In 2015, she received a PhD in Biostatistics from the Department of Statistics at The Ohio State University. Fangyuan Zhang's research interests are in statistical genetics and epigenetics. Her current research projects include developing parametric and nonparametric statistical methods to detect genomic imprinting and maternal effects under different study designs, and testing for association in a heterogeneous sample and its application to tumor clustering.
Dr. Giorgio Bornia
Ph.D. 2012 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: optimal control; numerical analysis; scientific computing; fluid dynamics; Applied Mathematics; Differential Equations; Mathematical Physics
Dr. Giorgio Bornia earned his Ph.D. from the University of Bologna in 2012. He joined Texas Tech with a visiting position in Fall 2012 and was appointed assistant professor in Fall 2013.
His research interests include: optimal control for partial differential equations; multi-physics problems in fluid dynamics, such as magnetohydrodynamics and fluid-structure interaction; finite element multigrid and domain decomposition methods; scientific computing.
Dr. Andrea Chierici
Ph.D. 2021 Università di Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics; Computational Mathematics; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Optimal Control
Andrea Chierici received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Energy Engineering from the University of Bologna in 2014 and 2017, respectively. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Bologna in 2021 under the supervision of Professor Sandro Manservisi. He then spent one year as a Post Doc at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Bologna. Andrea joined Texas Tech as a Post Doc in Spring 2022.
Dr. Bijoy Ghosh
Ph.D. 1983 Harvard University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Bioinformatics, Control Theory, Geometry, and Mathematical Biology
Bijoy K. Ghosh received the B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS, Pilani, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, and the Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics from the Decision and Control Group of the Division of Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, in 1977, 1979, and 1983, respectively. From 1983 to 2006, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, as a professor, and directed the center for BioCybernetics and Intelligent Systems. Presently he is a Dick and Martha Brooks Endowed Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX.Bijoy received the American Automatic Control Council's Donald Eckman Award in 1988 in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field of Automatic Control. He received the United Nations Development Program Consultancy in India under the TOKTEN program in 1993, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science invitation fellowship for research in Japan in 1997. In the year 2000, he became a Fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineering for fundamental contributions to System Theory with applications to robust control, vision and multi sensor fusion.Bijoy is a member of the editorial board of The IEEE Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. He has held visiting academic positions at the Yale University, USA; Universita di Padova, Italy; Institut Mittag-Leffler and Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden; Tokyo Institute of Technology and Osaka University, Japan. He is a permanent visiting professor at the Tokyo Denki University, Saitama, Japan and Technical University of Munich, Germany.
Dr. Ram Iyer
Ph.D. 1999 University of Maryland, College Park
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Analysis, Computational Mathematics, Control Theory, Geometry, Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Physics, Ordinary Differential Equations, and Signal Processing
Ram Iyer's research interests are very broad and encompass several areas. He is currently working on the design of contact lenses for patients with keratoconus. This project encompasses the areas of optics, low Reynolds number fluid dynamics, inverse problems, and some statistics. Some of his most enduring research areas include modeling, analysis, identification, and control of systems with hysteresis. Other research areas Dr. Iyer has worked on include optimal control of systems on Riemannian manifolds, inertial navigation systems for micro air vehicles based on insect vision, and trajectory planning problems for micro air vehicles.
Dr. Hongwei Mei
Ph.D. 2016 Wayne State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Stochastic Analysis, Stochastic Control and Optimization, Optimal Stopping
Dr. Hongwei Mei obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics in August 2016 from Wayne State University. He was a visiting assistant professor at the University of Central Florida (2016-2017) and the University of Kansas (2017-2020). Before joining TTU, he was a post-doc fellow in the Department of Statistics, Rice University. Dr. Mei is an applied probabilist, and his research interests include stochastic analysis, stochastic control and optimization, and optimal stopping. In those years, he has published several papers in SICON, SPA, JDE, ESAIM-COCV, etc.
Dr. Alex Wang
Ph.D. 1989 Arizona State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: System and Control Theory
Alex Wang received his B.S. and M.S. from Northwest Telecommunication Engineering Inst. (China) in 1982 and 1984, resp. He received his Ph.D. from Arizona State University in 1989. He came to Texas Tech as a visiting assistant professor in 1989 and, in 2004, he was appointed as a professor.
Dr. Leif Ellingson
Ph.D. 2011 Florida State University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Statistics and Geometric Shape Analysis
Leif Ellingson joined the department as an assistant professor in the fall of 2011. Prior to this, he completed a Ph.D. in statistics at Florida State University in the summer of 2011 and an M.S. from the same institution in 2009. Previously, he received a B.S. in mathematics from the University of Maryland in 2007.
Dr. Ellingson's dissertation research was in shape analysis with a focus on computationally efficient nonparametric methodology in application to the study of planar contours and structural proteomics. In addition to expanding upon those projects, his current research interests include statistics on manifolds and sample spaces with manifold stratification, as well as statistical applications in bioinformatics and computational biology.
Dr. Razvan Gelca
Ph.D. 1997 University of Iowa
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Topology
Razvan Gelca received his Bachelor's Degree at University of Timisoara and his Master's Degree at University of Bucharest. After working for one year at the Institute of Mathematics of the Romanian Academy, he went for doctoral studies at University of Iowa. After graduation he had a three-year postdoc at University of Michigan and then came to Texas Tech University.
Dr. Bijoy Ghosh
Ph.D. 1983 Harvard University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Bioinformatics, Control Theory, Geometry, and Mathematical Biology
Bijoy K. Ghosh received the B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS, Pilani, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, and the Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics from the Decision and Control Group of the Division of Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, in 1977, 1979, and 1983, respectively. From 1983 to 2006, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, as a professor, and directed the center for BioCybernetics and Intelligent Systems. Presently he is a Dick and Martha Brooks Endowed Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX.Bijoy received the American Automatic Control Council's Donald Eckman Award in 1988 in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field of Automatic Control. He received the United Nations Development Program Consultancy in India under the TOKTEN program in 1993, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science invitation fellowship for research in Japan in 1997. In the year 2000, he became a Fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineering for fundamental contributions to System Theory with applications to robust control, vision and multi sensor fusion.Bijoy is a member of the editorial board of The IEEE Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. He has held visiting academic positions at the Yale University, USA; Universita di Padova, Italy; Institut Mittag-Leffler and Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden; Tokyo Institute of Technology and Osaka University, Japan. He is a permanent visiting professor at the Tokyo Denki University, Saitama, Japan and Technical University of Munich, Germany.
Dr. Alastair Hamilton
Ph.D. 2005 Bristol University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebra, Geometry, Mathematical Physics, and Topology
Alastair Hamilton joined the mathematics department in the fall of 2010. Prior to this, he spent three years at the University of Connecticut as a postdoctoral fellow and a year at the Max Planck Institut fur Mathematic in Bonn, Germany. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Bristol in 2005 and his master's degree from the same institution in 2002. His research interests lie in algebra and topology. His research explores the connections between these areas and parts of mathematical physics, such as quantum field theory.
Dr. Ram Iyer
Ph.D. 1999 University of Maryland, College Park
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Analysis, Computational Mathematics, Control Theory, Geometry, Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Physics, Ordinary Differential Equations, and Signal Processing
Ram Iyer's research interests are very broad and encompass several areas. He is currently working on the design of contact lenses for patients with keratoconus. This project encompasses the areas of optics, low Reynolds number fluid dynamics, inverse problems, and some statistics. Some of his most enduring research areas include modeling, analysis, identification, and control of systems with hysteresis. Other research areas Dr. Iyer has worked on include optimal control of systems on Riemannian manifolds, inertial navigation systems for micro air vehicles based on insect vision, and trajectory planning problems for micro air vehicles.
Dr. Jeffrey M Lee
Ph.D. 1987 University of California, Los Angeles
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Differential Geometry, Geometric Analysis
Jeffrey M. Lee received his B.S. from Brigham Young University in 1982 and his M.A. and Ph.D. from University of California (Los Angeles) in 1984 and 1987, resp. He came to Texas Tech as an assistant professor in 1990 and, in 1996, he was appointed as an associate professor.
Dr. Alvaro Pampano
Ph.D. 2018 University of the Basque Country
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Differential Geometry, Calculus of Variations
After receiving his Ph.D. in October 2018 from the University of the Basque Country, Alvaro Pampano spent two years as a Visiting Postdoctoral professor at Idaho State University and another two years as a Postdoctoral Teaching Scholar at Texas Tech University. His main mathematical research interests include the area of Differential Geometry. More specifically, he is interested in theoretical problems related to the Geometric Calculus of Variations for curves, surfaces and hypersurfaces immersed in several ambient spaces.
Dr. Dmitri Pavlov
Ph.D. 2011 University of California, Berkeley
Office Hours:
- T 2:30 - 3:00 PM (Online)
Research Interests: Homotopy Theory, Higher Differential Geometry, D-modules and Mixed Hodge Modules, Factorization Algebras, Functorial Quantum Field Theory, Tomita—Takesaki Theory
Dmitri Pavlov joined the department as an assistant professor in 2017. His research explores connections between quantum field theory, homotopy theory and higher category theory, and differential and algebraic geometry. It includes areas such as model categories and abstract homotopy theory, differential, equivariant, and twisted cohomology theories, motivic homotopy theory, D-modules and mixed Hodge modules, factorization algebras, functorial field theory, and Tomita-Takesaki theory.
Dr. Magdalena Toda
Ph.D. 2000 University of Kansas
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Geometry, Integrable Systems, Mathematical Physics, and Non-Linear Partial Differential Equations
Magdalena Toda came to the Texas Tech University in 2001 as an Assistant Professor. Her main research interests are in differential geometry and related integrable systems. She is especially interested in geometric solutions of partial differential equations, in particular non-linear PDEs which arise from integrable systems. Fluid flows, studied from a geometric view point, represent one of her research interests since 2004. Appointed to Departmental Chair as of March 1, 2016.
Dr. Hung Tran
Ph.D. 2014 Cornell University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Differential Geometry, Minimal Surfaces, Einstein Structures, 4-D Manifolds, Ricci flow, Harnack inequalities, and Applications of Geometry in Math Bio and Data Science
From a small village in Vietnam, Hung Tran obtained his bachelor degree from Berea College in Kentucky and in 2014 received his PhD degree in mathematics from Cornell University. He was a visiting assistant professor at the University of California at Irvine before joining Texas Tech University in 2017. His research lies at the interface of geometry and analysis with potential applications to mathematical physics, math bio, and data science. In other words, he utilizes analytical techniques (aka PDE) to investigate geometric equilibrium configurations. His recent work focuses on generalized Willmore and minimal surfaces, Einstein structures, and spectral analysis.
Dr. Mohit Tripathi
Ph.D. 2021 IIT Guwahati
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Number Theory, Hypergeometric function over finite fields, Appell function over finite fields, p-adic Hypergeometric functions, p-adic Appell function, Modular forms, Elliptic curves, and Galois representations
Mohit Tripathi received his Master's and Ph.D. Degrees in Mathematics from the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Assam, India. He then spent two years as a Research Associate at the School of Mathematical Sciences of the National Institute of Science Education and Research (NISER), Bhubaneswar, India. Mohit Tripathi joined Texas Tech as a Post Doc in Fall 2023.
Dr. Aaron Tyrrell
Ph.D. 2021 Notre Dame
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Geometric Analysis, Conformal Geometry
Dr. Aaron Tyrrell obtained his B.Sc. and M.Sc. from Maynooth University in his native Ireland before moving to the United States in 2016 to begin graduate school at the University of Notre Dame.  His doctoral thesis, titled âRenormalized Volume and Areaâ was completed in May 2021 under the supervision of Professor Matthew Gursky. Before starting a Lecturer position at Texas Tech in Fall 2022, he spent a year as a Research Associate at University of Texas at Dallas working with Dr. Stephen McKeown. His research interests currently lie in an area of geometric analysis related to the holographic study of conformal geometry initiated by Fefferman and Graham.
Dr. David Weinberg
Ph.D. 1980 University of Wisconsin, Madison
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Algebraic Geometry
David Weinberg received his Bachelor's Degree from the University of Chicago in 1974 and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in 1980. He came to Texas Tech in 1980 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1986. He held appointments at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley, CA in 1987, 1988, 1989, and 2004.
His original research area was Fourier Analysis, but since the late 1980's his research areas have been Real Algebraic Geometry and Singularities of Plane Algebraic Curves.
Dr. Brock Williams
Ph.D. 1999 University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Analysis, Complex Analysis, Geometry, and Outreach Programs
Brock Williams came to Texas Tech in 1999 after earning a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee and a B.S. from Mississippi State University.
Dr. Williams primary research interests are discrete conformal geometry and geometric function theory. In particular, he especially interested in the application of circle packing techniques to Riemann surfaces and quasiconformal maps. He is also involved in several funded projects involving STEM outreach and teacher preparation.
Dr. Eugenio Aulisa
Ph.D. 2005 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical Physics, Numerical Analysis, and Partial Differential Equations
Dr. Eugenio Aulisa graduated in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Bologna (Italy) in 2001 and obtained his Ph.D. in Energetic, Nuclear and Environmental Control Engineering from the same institution in 2005. His first appointment at Texas Tech was as a Visiting Assistant Professor before entering a tenure-track position in 2007.
His primary research interests are in Computational fluid mechanics,
including modeling and simulation of multiphase flows and fluid-structure interaction problems,
non-linear analysis of fluid flow filtration in porous media, and
multigrid solvers with domain decomposition methods.
Dr. Jeffrey Belding
Ph.D. 2021 University of Nevada Las Vegas
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Mathematical Physics
Jeffrey Belding received his Bachelor's degree in Pure Mathematics and Physics from the University of Nevada, Reno in 2015. He received his Ph.D. in Computational Mathematics from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2021 under the supervision of Professor Monika Neda. He also spent time as a Ph.D. student working as an intern for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, and later doing contract work with them after graduating with a Ph.D.
Dr. Giorgio Bornia
Ph.D. 2012 University of Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: optimal control; numerical analysis; scientific computing; fluid dynamics; Applied Mathematics; Differential Equations; Mathematical Physics
Dr. Giorgio Bornia earned his Ph.D. from the University of Bologna in 2012. He joined Texas Tech with a visiting position in Fall 2012 and was appointed assistant professor in Fall 2013.
His research interests include: optimal control for partial differential equations; multi-physics problems in fluid dynamics, such as magnetohydrodynamics and fluid-structure interaction; finite element multigrid and domain decomposition methods; scientific computing.
Dr. Andrea Chierici
Ph.D. 2021 Università di Bologna
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics; Computational Mathematics; Computational Fluid Dynamics; Optimal Control
Andrea Chierici received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Energy Engineering from the University of Bologna in 2014 and 2017, respectively. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Bologna in 2021 under the supervision of Professor Sandro Manservisi. He then spent one year as a Post Doc at the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Bologna. Andrea joined Texas Tech as a Post Doc in Spring 2022.
Dr. Bijoy Ghosh
Ph.D. 1983 Harvard University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Bioinformatics, Control Theory, Geometry, and Mathematical Biology
Bijoy K. Ghosh received the B.Tech. and M.Tech. degrees in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from BITS, Pilani, and the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, and the Ph.D. degree in Applied Mathematics from the Decision and Control Group of the Division of Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, in 1977, 1979, and 1983, respectively. From 1983 to 2006, he has been a faculty member in the Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO, as a professor, and directed the center for BioCybernetics and Intelligent Systems. Presently he is a Dick and Martha Brooks Endowed Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX.Bijoy received the American Automatic Control Council's Donald Eckman Award in 1988 in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the field of Automatic Control. He received the United Nations Development Program Consultancy in India under the TOKTEN program in 1993, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science invitation fellowship for research in Japan in 1997. In the year 2000, he became a Fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineering for fundamental contributions to System Theory with applications to robust control, vision and multi sensor fusion.Bijoy is a member of the editorial board of The IEEE Transactions on Computational Biology and Bioinformatics. He has held visiting academic positions at the Yale University, USA; Universita di Padova, Italy; Institut Mittag-Leffler and Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden; Tokyo Institute of Technology and Osaka University, Japan. He is a permanent visiting professor at the Tokyo Denki University, Saitama, Japan and Technical University of Munich, Germany.
Dr. Wei Guo
Ph.D. 2014 University of Houston
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Numerical Analysis, Scientific Computing, Computational Fluid Dynamics, and Plasma Simulations
Wei Guo received his Ph.D. degree in applied mathematics from the University of Houston in 2014. He was a visiting assistant professor at Michigan State University before joining Texas Tech University. His research involves developing and analyzing efficient and high order accurate numerical algorithms and their applications to various fields, such as fluid dynamics and plasma physics. His recent work focuses on high order semi-Lagrangian methods for transport problems and high order sparse grid schemes for high-dimensional partial differential equations.
Dr. Raegan Higgins
Ph.D. 2008 University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Dynamic Equations, Ordinary Differential Equations, Time Scales, and Outreach Programs
Raegan Higginsâ research is in time scales; her interests focus on oscillation criteria for certain linear and nonlinear second order dynamic equations. She is also interested in applications of time scales to biology, economics, engineering, and statistics. Additionally, Dr. Higgins is involved in funded projects focused on STEM outreach with an emphasis in increasing minorities in STEM. She received her Bachelorâs Degree in Mathematics from Xavier University of Louisiana in 2002 and her Doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2008.
Dr. Victoria Howle
Ph.D. 2001 Cornell University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Numerical Analysis
Victoria Howle's research is in applied mathematics with a focus mainly on numerical linear algebra. Her main research interests are currently in physics-based pre-conditioning for incompressible fluid flow problems, scalable preconditioners for implicit Runge-Kutta methods, and machine learning algorithms. Dr. Howle received her Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Cornell University in 2001, worked as a research mathematician at Sandia National Laboratories from 2000 to 2007, then joined the TTU mathematics department in 2007.
Dr. Juntao Huang
Ph.D. 2018 Tsinghua University, Beijing
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Machine Learning, PDEs, Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics
Dr. Juntao Huang obtained dual bachelor degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics in 2013, and a Ph.D. in Applied Math in 2018 from Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. Prior to joining Texas Tech University in 2022, he worked as a visiting assistant professor at Michigan State University. His research interests involve the design and analysis of numerical methods for partial differential equations (PDEs) and using machine learning to assist traditional scientific computing tasks. His recent work includes structure-preserving machine learning moment closures for kinetic models, adaptive sparse grid discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods and structure-preserving time discretizations for hyperbolic equations.
Dr. Ram Iyer
Ph.D. 1999 University of Maryland, College Park
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Analysis, Computational Mathematics, Control Theory, Geometry, Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Physics, Ordinary Differential Equations, and Signal Processing
Ram Iyer's research interests are very broad and encompass several areas. He is currently working on the design of contact lenses for patients with keratoconus. This project encompasses the areas of optics, low Reynolds number fluid dynamics, inverse problems, and some statistics. Some of his most enduring research areas include modeling, analysis, identification, and control of systems with hysteresis. Other research areas Dr. Iyer has worked on include optimal control of systems on Riemannian manifolds, inertial navigation systems for micro air vehicles based on insect vision, and trajectory planning problems for micro air vehicles.
Dr. Sophia Jang
Ph.D. 1990 Texas Tech University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics and Mathematical Biology
Sophia R.-J. Jang received her Ph.D. in 1990 from Texas Tech University. She joined Texas Tech as an associate professor in Fall of 2008. Before returning to Tech, she was a faculty member at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Her main research activities are in mathematical biology and applied mathematics.
Dr. W. Brent Lindquist
Ph.D. 1981 Cornell University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Oil Extraction is Matter of Mathematics, Physics, and Applied Math, Mathematical Finance
Dr Lindquist is the previous Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and an applied mathematician. His interests have included numerical methods for PDEs; flow in porous media; automated 3D image analysis for porous media, neuron, and fiber analyses; Riemann problems in 2D; hierarchy formation in social animal groups; and numerical solution of Feynman diagrams. He is a co-recipient of the Lee Segal prize from the Society of Mathematical Biology.
Dr. Katharine Long
Ph.D. 1991 Princeton
Office Hours:
- MF 1:00 - 3:00 PM
- by Appointment
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, and Numerical Analysis
Dr. Long's research is in scientific computing: ranging from work on developing efficient mathematical algorithms for large scale simulation and optimization, to the design of advanced software architectures for high-performance simulation, to application of computational simulation to problems in physics, engineering, biology, and national defense.
Dr. Long joined Texas Tech in 2007 after nine years in the computational mathematics research department at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California. Previously, she worked in industry at Beam Technologies, was on the physics faculty at the State University of New York at Brockport, and was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts. Her undergraduate degree is in astronomy from the University of Maryland. Her graduate study was at Princeton University where she received a PhD in theoretical astrophysics in 1991.
Dr. James Surles
Ph.D. 1999 University of South Carolina
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Statistics, Reliability and Survival Analysis, and Statistics
James G. Surles received B.S. degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from McNeese State University in 1995 and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Statistics from the University of South Carolina in 1997 and 1999, respectively.
Dr. Surles came to Texas Tech University in 1999, where he is currently an Assistant Professor. His main research interests are Reliability and the Exponentiated Weibull and Burr type X lifetime models, but he also enjoys working with researchers from around Texas Tech on a variety of research projects.
Dr. Travis Thompson
Ph.D. 2013 Texas A&M University
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Mathematical biology, Mathematical modeling, Numerical analysis, Scientific computing, Applied machine learning
Dr. Travis Thompson was a strategic hire at the rank of assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech effective Fall 2022. Prior to this, he received a Ph.D. in Mathematics from Texas A&M University for work in numerical analysis and finite element methods with application to problems in computational fluid dynamics. Following his doctoral work, Dr. Thompson held postdoctoral fellowship positions in applied mathematics at Rice University, Simula Research Laboratory and Oxford University where he focused on numerical methods and mathematical modeling of neuropathology and the brain. His research focuses on the mathematical modeling of complex biological systems and the development, analysis and application of the numerical methods and data-driven scientific computing approaches enabling their study.
Dr. Ignacio Tomas
Ph.D. 2015 University of Maryland
Office Hours:
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics
Dr. Ignacio Tomas obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Maryland in 2015. Following his doctoral work on Numerical Analysis of PDE models describing ferrofluids, he took a Visiting Assistant Professor position at Texas A&M University (TAMU). Before joining TTU he held a postdoctoral position at Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, New Mexico). During his time at TAMU he developed non-variational schemes for hyperbolic systems of conservation laws with mathematically guaranteed properties. More recently he has worked in the analysis and development of numerical schemes for PDE models of electric charge transport, such as Euler-Poisson and Euler-Maxwell system of dense plasmas. Overall, his research focuses on the analysis, development, and implementation of physically motivated PDE-models and their respective numerical schemes.
Dr. Hung Tran
Ph.D. 2014 Cornell University
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Research Interests: Differential Geometry, Minimal Surfaces, Einstein Structures, 4-D Manifolds, Ricci flow, Harnack inequalities, and Applications of Geometry in Math Bio and Data Science
From a small village in Vietnam, Hung Tran obtained his bachelor degree from Berea College in Kentucky and in 2014 received his PhD degree in mathematics from Cornell University. He was a visiting assistant professor at the University of California at Irvine before joining Texas Tech University in 2017. His research lies at the interface of geometry and analysis with potential applications to mathematical physics, math bio, and data science. In other words, he utilizes analytical techniques (aka PDE) to investigate geometric equilibrium configurations. His recent work focuses on generalized Willmore and minimal surfaces, Einstein structures, and spectral analysis.
Dr. Dimitri Volchenkov
Ph.D. 1996 Saint Petersburg State University (Russia)
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Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Data Analysis
In 2007 in Marseille, France, Dr. Volchenkov was awarded l'Habilitation a diriger des recherches at the Centre de Physique Theorique, and habilitated at the University of Bielefeld in Germany in 2010. He is an applied mathematician working in the field of data analysis, stochastic non-linear dynamics, complexity and uncertainty in real-world systems. His interdisciplinary research agenda ranges from plasma turbulence and tsunami waves, to the distribution of urban poverty, human behavior and communication patterns, models of political and biological evolution, and decision-making under uncertainty.
Dr. Yifan Wang
Ph.D. 214 Louisiana Tech University
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Research Interests: Applied Mathematics, Computational Mathematics, Mathematical modeling and programming, Biomathematics
Dr. Yifan Wang obtained his Ph.D. in Computational Analysis and Modeling in 2014 from Louisiana Tech University. He received postdoc training at the University of Houston and the University of California, Berkeley during 2014-2020. Before joining TTU, he was a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine. His research focuses on numerical solutions to fluid-structure interaction problems, emphasizing biomedical-related applications. His expertise lies in computational mathematics, parallel computing, and machine learning.
Dr. Wenjing Zhang
Ph.D. 2014 University of Western Ontario
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Research Interests: Biomath, Applied Mathematics
Wenjing Zhang investigates disease dynamics, including recurrence and multiple stability, in parameter space through bifurcation theory, geometric singular perturbation theory and scientific computation. Her paper "Viral Blips May Not Need a Trigger: How Transient Viremia Can Arise in Deterministic In-Host Models" was published in SIGEST section in SIAM Review in 2014.
