2007–2009 IMA Postdocs
and Industrial Postdocs
We are delighted to welcome a new cohort of eight IMA Postdoctoral Fellows
in connection with the 2007–2008 thematic program
Mathematics of Molecular and
Cellular Biology.
As one can see from the brief introductions of the
newcomers given below, they form a diverse and talented group.
Hannah Callendar
received her PhD in Mathematics from Vanderbilt University in May 2007.
Her dissertation was written under the
supervision of Mary Ann Horn in the Department of Mathematics and was
co-advised by H. Alex Brown in the Department of Pharmacology.
Her current
area of
research focuses on the study of cellular signaling pathways in
macrophage-like cell lines, where mathematical models are providing
insight into the structure and function of these complex cellular
interactions.
Ludovica
Cotta-Ramusino will receive her PhD in mathematical modeling of DNA
from Ecole Polytecnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in August 2007 under
the supervision of John Maddocks. Her current research interest focuses
on mathematical modeling of
DNA looping which in vivo is functional in many cellular processes,
such as transcriptional regulation, recombination and replication.
The comparison between the theoretical analysis and the experimental
data on DNA
loop formation and DNA cyclization allows for a better understanding
of the mechanical properties of DNA and their sequence dependency.
Peter Hinow has
defended his PHD in April, 2007 under the supervision of Glenn Webb. His
research interests lie in mathematical modeling of cytostatic
effects of anti-cancer drugs. His other interest is in inverse problems in
nanobiology, in particular wave equations for single molecules of DNA.
Yeona Kang
received his PhD in Applied Mathemtics and Statistics
from
Stony Brook University in August 2006 under the supervision of Charles
Fortmann. Currently his research is focused on mathematical and computer
simulation of
important problems in bio-physics related to the protein folding
dynamics, protein structure, docking, and neural ionic transport.
Deena Schmidt received her
PhD in Applied Mathematics from Cornell University in May 2007 under the
supervision of Richard Durrett.
Her research focuses on probability with applications in genetics.
A main topic in her PhD thesis deals with Markov chain models of DNA
regulatory sequence evolution.
Andrew Stein
will receive his PhD in Applied Mathematics from University of Michigan
in August 2007,
under the supervision of Leonard Sander and Trachette Jackson. His
current research
focus is on 1) PDE and SDE models for brain tumor invasion and 2)
micromechanical
models for collagen-I gels and cell-gel interactions.
His overall goal is to develop quantitative data analysis techniques
and simple
mathematical models that help doctors and biologists better
understand their
experimental data.
Erkan Tuzel
received his PhD in Physics from the University of Minnesota, in
December 2006
under the supervision of Daniel Kroll. He is currently a research assistant
professor at North Dakota State University. His research focuses on
the development
of mesoscale simulation techniques and their application to model
complex fluids
such as ternary mixtures and polymeric fluids. Current work
includes the
application of these methods to study the behavior of microtubules
in cells,
with the goal of understanding the role of molecular motors and
polymerization
of microtubules in determining cell shape and function.
Zhian Wang
received his PhD from the Department of Mathematical & Statistical
Sciences,University of Alberta, in the field of Mathematical Biology and
Partial Differential Equations in August 2007.
His research mainly focuses on the qualitative and numerical
analysis of
transport equations and
advection-diffusion equations as well as their applications to chemotaxis
and cell movement in tissue.
Industrial postdocs
are sponsored by one of the corporate or government lab
participating organizations
and spend at least
half of their time working on a project developed in cooperation with
the partner organization.
Olivier
Dubois will
receive his PHD from
Department of Mathematics and Statistics at McGill University.
He is appointed to an industrial postdoc position with ExxonMobil.
Olivier is interested in mathematical modelling and scientific computing;
more precisely
he specializes in problems involving the numerical solution of partial
differential equations.
In addition to the newcomers, the following 2006–2008
Postdoctoral Fellows will stay at the IMA through 2007–2008:
Daniel Bates,
Jason Gower,
Milena Hering,
Anton Leykin,
and Jiawang
Nie. Furthermore the following 2006–2008 industrial postdocs: Yermal Sujeet Bhat currently an
industrial
postdoc at AFRL, Laura
Lurati
an industrial postdoc at Boeing and Hongchao Zhang, an
industrial
postdoc at IBM, will be joinng the IMA next year.
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