Former Van Loo Postdoctoral Fellows

Philip Arathoon

Van Loo Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor

Research Interests: My research area is in Hamiltonian dynamics, symplectic geometry, and representation theory.

Education/Degree
Ph.D., University of Manchester (2019)
M.Phil., University of Manchester (2015)
M.Math., University of Cambridge (2014)
B.A., University of Cambridge, Trinity Hall (2013)

Contact
Department of Mathematics
2856 East Hall
530 Church Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043

Email: philash@umich.edu

Website


Tomas Berggren

Tomas Berggren

Research Interests:  Tiling models of planar domains with doubly periodically weightings.

Education/Degree
B.S., Lund University (2014)
M.S., Stockholm University (2015)
Ph.D., Royal Institute of Technology (2020)

First placement after postdoc:
Postdoctoral Associate
MIT Department of Mathematics

Website


Elliot Blackstone

Van Loo Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor

Research Interests: Mathematical physics. More precisely, the focus of my current work is:
1) The Benjamin-Ono equation, which, in simplest terms, is used to model waves along the interface of two fluids,
2) Finite Hilbert transforms, their spectral theory, and relation to the interior problem of tomography, and
3) Toeplitz determinants with Fisher-Hartwig singularities.

Education/Degree
Ph.D., University of Central Florida (2019)
M.S., University of Central Florida (2014)
B.S., Penn State (2011)

Contact
Department of Mathematics
1821 East Hall
530 Church Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1043

Email: eblackst@umich.edu

Website


Thomas Bothner

Research Interest:
My research focuses on asymptotical questions in the modern theory of integrable systems. This theory belongs to the field of mathematical physics and I am foremost interested in problems of random matrix theory, in particular problems which display intimate connections to statistical physics (exactly solvable models) and the field of integrable differential equations (Painleve and nonlinear wave type equations). The application of asymptotic methods, special function theory and the theory of orthogonal polynomials is central to this work. My papers can be found on the arXiv and on MathSciNet.

Education/Degree
B.Sc., Ulm University (2007)
M. Sc., Ulm University (2009)
Ph. D., Purdue University (2013)

First placement after postdoc:
Assistant Professor/Lecturer
King’s College

Website


Eduardo Corona

Research Interest:
Fast algorithms, numerical methods for integral equations, randomized linear algebra, high performance scientific computing (HPC), computational fluid dynamics (CFD), computational electromagnetics (CEM), and finite element methods (FEM).

Education/Degree
B.S., Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico (2007)
M.S., New York University (2010)
Ph. D., New York University (2014)

First placement after postdoc:
Assistant Professor
New York Institute of Technology

Website


John Golden

Research Interest: 
Theoretical Elementary Particle Physics. My research is focused on scattering amplitudes, which are mathematical functions predicting what will happen when subatomic particles collide. These functions frequently involve a class of functions known as polylogarithms, which are generalizations of the logarithm. Unexpectedly, scattering amplitudes also appear intricately related to cluster algebras, a class of commutative rings introduced by Sergey Fomin and collaborators here at UMich. I am trying to understand how these worlds of particle physics, polylogarithms, and cluster algebras intersect, and hopefully gain some physical understanding of the role that these branches of mathematics play in the structure of our universe.

Education/Degree
Brown University

First placement after postdoc:
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Los Alamos National Laboratory

Website


David Goluskin

Research Interest:
My research is in the broad area of applied nonlinear dynamics and incorporates both computation and analysis. Much of my work concerns fluid dynamics, but I also study simpler ordinary and partial differential equations. Recently I have been developing ways to use polynomial optimization to study dynamics, for instance to estimate time averages and other properties of attractors. A lecture for the public relating generally to some of my fluid dynamical research can be found here. I currently have funding for another PhD or MSc student to join my research group; a strong mathematical background and computational skills are required.

Education/Degree
PhD Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, 2013
MS Applied Mathematics, Columbia University, 2009
BS Applied Mathematics, University of Colorado Boulder, 2007
BS Aerospace Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder, 2007

Website


Dae Wook Kim

Van Loo Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor

Research Interests: Systems biology, biochemical networks, circadian rhythms, DNA damage and p53-rhythms, chronotherapy, precision medicine, wearable technology, mathematical modeling, dynamical systems, stochastic process

Education/Degree
Ph.D., Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (2021)
B.S., Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (2016)

First placement after postdoc:
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
Sogang University, Seoul

Website


Pengyu Le

Research Interest: 
My research fields are differential geometry and general relativity. I am especially interested in Lorentzian geometry and their applications to specific problems in general relativity. I have studied the surface theory in Lorentzian manifolds and contributed to the criteria of the existence of trapped surfaces which is closely related to black holes in general relativity. I am also interested in the connections between Lorentzian geometry and other kinds of geometries.

Another focus of my research is the geometry of null hypersurfaces, which plays important roles in understanding the geometry of spacetimes. An application is the Penrose’s inequality relating the total mass of the spacetime and the mass of a black hole in it.  In the future, I want to continue exploring these fields and broaden our knowledge about them.

Education/Degree
B.Sc., Tsinghua University (2013)
Ph.D., ETH Zurich (2018)

First placement after postdoc:
Assistant Professor
Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications (BIMSA) 

Website


Howard Levinson

Research Interest:
My research focuses on inverse problems and its imaging applications. In particular, I am interested in developing robust and efficient algorithms and computational methods for solving various types of inverse scattering problems. Specific topics of interest include nonlinear scattering, sparse reconstructions, and fluorescence microscopy.

Education/Degree
B.A., Tufts University (2011)
Ph. D., University of Pennsylvania (2016)

First placement after postdoc:
Tenure Track Assistant Professor
Santa Clara University

Website


Sitai Li

Research Interest:
My main research interests are integrable nonlinear partial differential equations and their applications. These equations possess a remarkably deep mathematical structure and are also important from a practical point of view. They appear as the governing equations to many concrete physical situations, such as acoustics, Bose-Einstein condensates, optics, plasmas, and water waves. In particular, I apply analytic methods, including inverse scattering transform and long-time asymptotics, and numerical simulations to study the nonlinear Schrödinger-type systems and the Maxwell-Bloch systems and their solutions.

Education/Degree
B.Sc., Nankai University (2010)
Ph.D.,  University at Buffalo, SUNY (2018)

First placement after postdoc:
Assistant Professor
Xiamen University

Website


Jun Nian

Research Interest:
I am broadly interested in theoretical physics and mathematical physics. More specifically, I study quantum field theories, gravity theories, integrable models and their correspondences inspired by string theory.

Currently I am using supersymmetric localization to compute some physical quantities exactly with full quantum effects, which allows us to study the conjectured relations among different quantum theories as well as black hole entropies with quantum corrections. This also provides a physical way of obtaining some mathematical quantities, such as some topological invariants.

I am also working on quantum fluid, in particular Bose-Einstein condensate, by mapping it into an effective string theory and applying string theory techniques.

Education/Degree
Diplom, Heidelberg University, Germany (2009)
Ph.D., Stony Brook University, USA (2015)


Ian Tobasco

Research Interest:
I am a mathematical analyst specializing in the calculus of variations and partial differential equations. My work comes from physics and more specifically from solid mechanics and fluid dynamics. I have also worked on problems from statistical mechanics and the mean field theory of spin glasses. Regarding mechanics, I work on problems from nonlinear elasticity theory involving the wrinkling and crumpling of thin elastic sheets. Regarding fluids, I work on optimal design problems such as the design of optimal heat transport by an incompressible fluid. Both areas concern the study of highly non-convex optimization problems which possess many local optimizers. The challenge, therefore, is to understand what makes test functions globally optimal, and to reject those which are not.

Education/Degree
B.S.E., University of Michigan (2011)
Ph.D., Courant Institute, New York University (2016)

First placement after postdoc:
Assistant Professor of Mathematics
University of Illinois at Chicago

Website


Maria Han Veiga

Research Interests: My main research interests are in developing techniques for multi-scale mathematic modelling through assimilation of experimental data (to account for the simplifications of the models), and towards developing machine learning techniques compliant with a set of constraints (for example, physics laws).

Education/Degree
Ph.D.,  University of Zurich

First placement after postdoc:
Assistant Professor
Ohio State University

Website


Hui Zhu

Research Interests: Linear and nonlinear PDEs.

  1. Cauchy theory
  2. Control theory
  3. Fluid mechanics
  4. Microlocal analysis

Education/Degree
B.Sc., Tsinghua University (2014)
Ph.D., Université Paris-Sud XI (2019)

First placement after postdoc:
Research Associate
Department of Mathematics, Imperial College London

Website


Jörn Zimmerling

Van Loo Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor

Research Interests: My research interests lie in the field of numerical methods for partial differential equations. Currently, my research interests can be mainly summarized within two categories:

  1. Forward problems: Fast and efficient numerical solvers of PDEs with variable coefficients and in complex geometries. These involve reduced-order modeling, Krylov subspace projection methods, computation of resonances, fast numerical linear algebra and scientific computing.
  2. Inverse problems: Estimation of coefficients of PDEs from remote measurements.

Education/Degree
B.Sc., Delft University of Technology (2012)
M.Sc., Delft University of Technology (2014)
Ph.D., Delft University of Technology (2018)

First Placement After Postdoc:
Associate Senior Lecturer/Assistant Professor
Uppsala Universitet

Website