Faculty Mentors
Dr. Seth Jacobson
I am a planetary scientist interested in the history of the Solar System. I use numerical models to solve complex problems comparing my results to cosmochemical data sets and astrophysical observations.
Dr. Hanzhe Zhang
My research interests include two-sided matching and bargaining (with applications to labor economics and family economics), auctions, and evolutionary and psychological game theory. I seek to test my theories empirically and experimentally, and apply them in interdisciplinary and classroom settings.
Dr. Dirk Colbry
Dr. Colbry's principal areas of research include machine vision and pattern recognition (specializing in scientific image understanding). Dr. Colbry also does research in computational education and high-performance computing.
Dr. Huan Lei
Dr. Huan Lei got his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics at Brown University. His research focuses on the multi-scale modeling and stochastic simulation. His recent work mainly focuses on developing data-driven methods to learn high-fidelity physics-informed computational models directly from micro-scale descriptions.
Dr. Bryan Smith
Dr. Smith has an undergraduate background in physics and mathematics, with a doctorate in biomedical engineering. His lab focuses on developing innovative solutions to biomedical problems that harness the power of the immune system at the intersection of chemistry, biology, and nanotechnology. To do so, we use breakthrough nanoengineering, immunology, imaging technologies, and computational methods to develop new strategies to therapeutically manipulate and visualize the immune system in living subjects to treat and diagnose various diseases including cancer, heart disease, and neurodegenerative diseases.
Dr. Jose Mendoza
Our research philosophy focuses on attacking problems in engineering and pure sciences and developing methods needed to solve them. My research focuses on the development and application of numerical techniques to study structural, electronic, transport and optical properties of materials, low-dimensional systems and nanostructures.
Dr. Selin Aviyente
I am a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. My research interests are in the areas of signal processing and machine learning. Over the past ten years, I have been particularly interested in learning on graphs for biological networks such as the brain networks.
Dr. Alex Dickson
The Dickson Lab uses molecular simulations to probe interactions between drug molecules and their receptors in the body. Our specialty is in the development and application of new computational methods that allow us to simulate long-timescale events, and design new drug compounds that bind tightly to a given target.
Dr. Jason Bazil
I'm an assistant professor in the Physiology Department. I use computer modeling and experimental inquiry to discover and explain fundamental aspects of energy metabolism. Our lab is focused on mitochondria, the major organelle responsible for energy metabolism.
Vicente Amado Olivo and Dr. Wolfgang Kerzendorf
Vicente Amado Olivo is a graduate researcher in the department of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering. His research focuses on computational meta-research, the study of research itself. He works on building tools that will assist researchers, for example, in identifying new research directions or finding new collaborators.
Wolfgang Kerzendorf is an assistant professor in the departments of Astrophysics as well as Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering. His research interests are in studying the most energetic explosions in space using machine learning. He also uses machine learning to change the way humanity does science in a new field called computational meta-research.
Dr. Josh Vermaas
I lead a group that uses computer simulations to better understand plants and plant-related systems to improve global sustainability.
Dr. Sinem Mollaoglu
Dr. Sinem Mollaoglu is a Professor in Construction Management. Building on her interdisciplinary background of architecture and engineering, she focuses on improvement of complex and interdisciplinary project team networks.
Dr. Devin Silvia and Dr. Rachel Frisbie
Devin Silvia is the Director of Undergraduate Studies and a teaching specialist in the Department of Computational Mathematics, Science and Engineering (CMSE). Devin oversees the Bachelor of Science in Data Science as well as the Data Science and CMSE minors and teaches a variety of CMSE courses. His research interests are focused on understanding how students learn to do computational and data science and the ways in which students can take ownership in their learning process.
Rachel Frisbie is an Assistant Professor and has been teaching courses in CMSE and engaging in computational science education research with the Computational Education Research Lab (CERL) at MSU since 2020. Her interests include exploring how students problem solve using computational concepts as they progress through their education as well as how those findings can be applied to courses like those we teach in CMSE to improve student outcomes.
Dr. H. Metin Aktulga
Dr. Aktulga's research interests are in the areas of high performance computing, scientific computing, big data analytics and numerical linear algebra. He primarily works on the design and development of parallel algorithms, numerical methods and software systems that can harness the full potential of state-of-the-art computing platforms to address challenging problems in large scale scientific computations and big-data analytics problems. Of particular interest to him are molecular dynamics simulations and sparse linear algebra computations.
Dr. Shin-Han Shiu
Shinhan is a Professor of Plant Biology and Computational Math., Sci., & Engr. His group focuses on the questions of how genetic information can be translated into traits, how environmental factors impact traits, and how genetic mechanisms underlying traits have evolved using computational approaches.
Dr. Yadu Pokhrel
I am an Associate Professor in civil and environmental engineering. As one of the faculty members working in very broad areas of Hydrology and Water Resources in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, I lead the research group that particularly focuses on i) large-scale hydrological/Earth system modeling considering human impacts on water resources and climate, ii) climate change impacts, iii) sustainable food-energy-water systems, and v) infrastructural and societal resilience under climate extremes.
Dr. John Dorgan
I am a chemical engineer by training but work in the specialty field of polymer materials science. My work spans computer simulation, theory, and experiments. Presently, much of my effort is focused on sustainability in the plastics industries with an emphasis on recycling of plastics through chemical processing.