Mathematics

Recent PhDs

2020-2021 PhD Graduates

Margaret Grogan

  • Advisor: Olivia Prosper
  • Dissertation Title: Modeling Mosquite-borne Diseases: An adventure through ODEs and integral equations
  • 1st Placement: Assistaant Professor, United States Military Academy (West Point)

Jea-Hyun Park

  • Advisors: Abner Salgado & Steve Wise
  • Dissertation Title: Preconditioned Nesterov’s Accelerated Gradient Descent Method and Its Applications to Nonlinear PDE
  • 1st Placement: Visiting Assistant Professor (postdoctoral), Department of Mathematics, University of California Santa Barbara

Jeremy Siegert

  • Advisor: Jerzy Dydak
  • Dissertation Title: Coarse Proximity Spaces
  • 1st Placement: Postdoctoral Fellow, Mathematics Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva Israel

Cara Sulyok

  • Advisors: Judy Day & Suzanne Lenhart
  • Dissertation Title: Mathematical Models in Medicine: The Immune Response of Celiac Disease and the Environmental Transmission of Clostridioides difficile in Healthcare Settings
  • 1st Placement: Assistant Professor of Mathematics, Lewis University in Romeoville, IL

Hannah Thompson

  • Advisor: Suzanne Lenhart
  • Dissertation Title: Data Driven Models of Hemlock Woolly Adelgid Impacts and Biological Control
  • 1st Placement: Mathematical Statistician, U.S. Geological Survey, Upper Midwest Environmental Sciences Center, La Crosse, Wisconsin

2019-2020 PhD Graduates

Danielle Burton

  • Advisor: Suzanne Lenhart
  • Dissertation Title: Applications with discrete and continuous models: Harvesting and contact tracing
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc, Univ of Wisconsin

Joe Daws

  • Advisor: Clayton Webster
  • Dissertation Title: Theory and applications of nonlinear approximation at the intersection of mathematics and machine learning
  • 1st Placement: Machine Learning Engineer, Lirio (TN)

Khoa Dinh

  • Advisor: Tim Schulze
  • Dissertation Title: Effects of changing step edge energy on step flow instability for crystals growth in molecular beam epitaxy
  • 1st Placement: Asst. Prof, Manhattan College (NY)

Gabriel Dusing

  • Advisor: Dustin Cartwright
  • Dissertation Title: A methods for determining the realizability of tropical curves in R^3
  • 1st Placement: Freelance Data Scientist

Steve Galloway

  • Advisor: Steve Wise
  • Dissertation Title: Graphene formation using the PFC model with a vapor phase
  • 1st Placement: Asst. Prof., St. Andrews Univ (NC)

Jonathan Hicks

  • Advisor: Tim Schulze
  • Dissertation Title: Imposig early termination on a rejection scheme for off lattice kinetic Monte Carlo
  • 1st Placement: Lecturer, East Tenn State Univ

Delong Li

  • Advisor: Luis Finotti
  • Dissertation Title: Denominators of the Weierstrass coefficients of the canonical lifting
  • 1st Placement: Lecturer, Un of Tennessee

Cassie Micucci

  • Advisor: Vasileios Maroulas
  • Dissertation Title: Persistence diagram frameworks for machine learning
  • 1st Placement: Machine Learning Engineer, Eastman Chemical (TN)

Vy Nguyen

  • Advisor: Jan Rosinski
  • Dissertation Title: From isomorphism identities to Levy measures of non-negative infinitely divisible processes
  • 1st Placement: Lecturer, Un of Tennessee

Christopher Oballe

  • Advisor: Vasileios Maroulas
  • Dissertation Title: Bayesian topological machine learning
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc, Notre Dame Univ

Tricia Phillips

  • Advisor: Suzanne Lenhart/Christopher Strickland
  • Dissertation Title: Data-driven modeling of the heroin and fentanyl epidemic and the harvesting of trees in west Africa
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Birmingham Southern Univ

James Scott

  • Advisor: Tadele Mengesha
  • Dissertation Title: Analysis of peridynamics
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc, Univ of Pittsburgh

Adam Spannaus

  • Advisor: Vasileios Maroulas
  • Dissertation Title: Advanced statistical methods for atomic-level quantification of multi-component alloys
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc, Oak Ridge National Lab

Margaret Wieczorek

  • Advisor: Marie Jameson
  • Dissertation Title: Modular forms partitions, and Q-series
  • 1st Placement: Asst. Prof, US Military Academy, West Point

Michael Morgan Wise

  • Advisor: Ohannes Karakashian
  • Dissertation Title: Finite element mothods for systems of nonlinear, dispersive equations
  • 1st Placement: Scientist I, Dynetics Inc (AL)

Le Yin

  • Advisor: Vasileios Maroulas
  • Dissertation Title: Topological data analysis in sub-cellular motion reconstruction and filament networks classification

2018-2019 PhD Graduates

Ibrahim Aslan

  • Advisor: Suzanne Lenhart
  • Dissertation Title: Leptospirosis models: Vaccination of cattle and early detection in humans

Kileen Berry

  • Advisor: Tadele Mengesha/Steve Wise
  • Dissertation Title: An energy-based blending of classical elasticity and peridynamics
  • 1st Placement: Asst. Prof, Dalton State Univ (GA)

Mahir Demir

  • Advisor: Suzanne Lenhart
  • Dissertation Title: Applications of optimal control for ecosystem-based fishery management
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc, Michigan State Univ

Lindsey Fox

  • Advisor: Judy Day
  • Dissertation Title: Two applications of mathematical modeling: Control mechanisms of heart rate variability and contribution of environmental pathways in disease transmission
  • 1st Placement: Asst. Prof, Eckerd College (FL)

Bo Gao

  • Advisor: Xia Chen
  • Dissertation Title: Asymptotics for Brownian motion in Poisson potential with Riesz kernel and in time-independent Gaussian rough noise
  • 1st Placement: Statistical Quantitative Analyst, Suntrust Bank (GA)

Pawel Grzegrzolka

  • Advisor: Jerzy Dydak
  • Dissertation Title: Coarse proximity, proximity at infiity, and coarse structures
  • 1st Placement: Lecturer, Stanford Univ

Vincent Heningburg

  • Advisor: Cory Hauck/Xiaobing Feng
    Year of Entry: 2012
  • Dissertation Title: Numerical methods for radiative transport equations

Logan Perry

  • Advisor: Sergey Gavrilets
  • Dissertation Title: Modeling the effects of cognition on cooperation
  • 1st Placement: Lecturer, Un of Louisiana, Lafayette

Hamza Ruzayqat

  • Advisor: Tim Schulze
  • Dissertation Title: rejection enhanced off-lattice Kinetic Monte Carlo
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc, King Abdullah Univ, Saudi Arabia

Montgomery Taylor

  • Advisor: Mike Frazier/Grozdena Todorova
  • Dissertation Title: The diffusion phenomenon for dissipative wave equations in metric measure spaces with time-dependent operators

Thomas Weighill

  • Advisor: Jerzy Dydak
  • Dissertation Title: On some coarse geometric notions inspired by topology and category theory
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc, Tufts Univ

2017-2018 PhD Graduates

Mark Bly

  • Advisor: S. B. Mulay
  • Dissertation Title: Classifications of real conic and cubic curves
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Coast Carolina Univ

John Cummings

  • Advisor: Steve Wise
  • Dissertation Title: Mathematical modeling of mixtures and numerical solution with applications to polymer physics
  • 1st Placement: Visiting Asst Prof, Berry College (GA)

Nicholas Dexter

  • Advisor: Clayton Webster
  • Dissertation Title: Sparse reconstruction techniques for solutios of high-dimensional parametric PDEs
  • 1st Placement: PIMS Post-doc, Simon Fraser Univ (Canada)

Mustafa Elmas

  • Advisor:Vasilios Alexiades
  • Dissertation Title: Mathematical models of bacterial chemotaxis
  • 1st Placement: Analyst, Assurian (TN)

Logan Higginbotham

  • Advisor: Jerzy Dydak
  • Dissertation Title: Coarse constructions
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Campbell Univ (NC)

David Horton

  • Advisor: Joan Lind
  • Dissertation Title: Analysis of Weierstrass’ function and its effect on Loewner hulls
  • 1st Placement: Lecturer, Un of Tennessee

Xiaoyang Pan

  • Advisor: Vasileios Maroulas
  • Dissertation Title: Asymptotics for dynamical systems driven by jump noise
  • 1st Placement: Quantitative Analyst, BB&T Bank (NC)

Kevin Sonnanburg

  • Advisor: Alex Freire
  • Dissertation Title: Blow-ups of two-convex, Type-I mean curvature flow

Andrew Starnes

  • Advisor: Joan Lind
  • Dissertation Title: Investigating hulls from the Loewner equation
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Univ of Hartford (CT)

Brittany Stephenson

  • Advisor: Judy Day
  • Dissertation Title: Comparing the impact of control strategies on mathematical models of Clostridium Difficile transmission
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Lewis Univ (IL)

Elise Weir

  • Advisor: Morwen Thistlethwaite
  • Dissertation Title: The dimension of the restricted Hitchin component for triangle groups
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc, Un of California, Santa Barbara

2016-2017 PhD Graduates

Wenqiang Feng

  • Advisor: Steve Wise
  • Dissertation Title: Linearly preconditioned nonlinear solvers for phase field equations involving P-Laplacian terms
  • 1st Placement: Data Scientist, DST Systems Inc (MO)

Elizabeth Heines

  • Advisor: Suzanne Lenhart
  • Dissertation Title: Assessing the economic tradeoffs between prevention and suppression of forest fires
  • 1st Placement: Department of Justice

Peter Jantsch

  • Advisor: Clayton Webster
  • Dissertation Title: Efficient methods for multidimensional global polynomial approimation with applications to random PDEs
  • 1st Placement: NSF Post-doc, Texas A&M

Ryan Jensen

  • Advisor: Jerzy Dydak
  • Dissertation Title: Localization of large scaale structures
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Stephen F. Austin State Univ

Tim Krumwiede

  • Advisor: Tim Schulze
  • Dissertation Title: Surface energy in bond-counting models on Bravais and Non-Bravais lattices
  • 1st Placement: Visiting Asst Professor, Brigham Young Univ

Andrew Marchese

  • Advisor: Vasileios Maroulas
  • Dissertation Title: Statistical and topological techniques for classification and clustering
  • 1st Placement: Data Scientist, Plated (NY)

Grace McClurkin

  • Advisor: David Anderson
  • Dissertation Title: Generalizations and variations of zero-divisor graphs
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Saginaw Valley St Univ

Joshua Mike

  • Advisor: Vasileios Maroulas
  • Dissertation Title: Understaanding data through computational topology and geometry
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc, Michigan State Univ

Kelly Rooker

  • Advisor: Sergey Gavrilets
  • Dissertation Title: Modeling the evolution of visual sexual signaling, receptivity, and sexual signal reliability among female primates
  • 1st Placement: Data Scientist, Johns Hopkins Univ Applied Physics Lab

Stefan Schnake

  • Advisor: Xiaobing Feng
  • Dissertation Title: Nmerical methods for non-divergence form second order linear elliptic partial differential equations and discontinuous Ritz methods for problems from the calculus of variations
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc, Un of Oklahoma

Kevin Sinclair

  • Advisor: Jerzy Dydak
  • Dissertation Title: Generalizations of coarse properties in large scale spaces
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Shenandoah Univ (VA)

Eddie Tu

  • Advisor: Jan Rosinski
  • Dissertation Title: Dependence structures in Levy-type Markov processes
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Dickinson College (PA)

Darrin Weber

  • Advisor: David Anderson
  • Dissertation Title: Various toics on graphical structures placed on commutative rings
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Univ of Evansville (IN)

Chase Worley

  • Advisor: Remus Nicoara
  • Dissertation Title: Construction and classification results for commuting squares of finite dimensional *-algebras
  • 1st Placement: Visiting Lecturer, Maryville College (TN)

Faruk Yilmaz

  • Advisor: Stefan Richter
  • Dissertation Title: Approximation of invariant subspaces
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc Fellow, Univ of Calgary (Canada)

2015-2016 PhD Graduates

Brian Allen

  • Advisor: Alex Freire
  • Dissertation Title: Non-compact solutions of inverse mean curvature flow in hyperbolic space
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc, West Point Naval Academy

Kokum DeSilva

  • Advisor: Suzanne Lenhart
  • Dissertation Title: Investigating advection control in competitive PDE systems and environmental transmission in Johne’s disease ODe models
  • 1st Placement: Lecturer, Univ of Peradeniya (Sri Lanka)

Kyle Golenbiewski

  • Advisor: Tim Schulze
  • Dissertation Title: Kinetic Monte Carlo models for crystal defects
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Un of North Alabama

Michael Holloway

  • Advisor: Jerzy Dydak
  • Dissertation Title: Topology/large scale geometry
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, St. Augustine’s Univ (NC)

Kai Kang

  • Advisor:Vasileios Maroulas
  • Dissertation Title: Advanced sequental Monte Carlo methods and their applications to sparse sensor network for detection and estimation
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc Research Fellow, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NC)

Ben Levy

  • Advisor: Suzanne Lenhart/Chuck Collins
  • Dissertation Title: Modeling feral hogs in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Fitchburg State Univ (MA)

Ryan Loga

  • Advisor: Mike Frazier
  • Dissertation Title: Extension theorems on matrix weighted Sobolev spaces
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Southwestern Adventist Univ

Vajira Manathunga

  • Advisor: James Conant
  • Dissertation Title: The Conway polynomial and aphicheiral knots
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Middle Tennessee State Univ

Tyler Massaro

  • Advisor: H. Bozdogan
  • Dissertation Title: Variable selection via penalized regression and the genetic algorithm using information complexity, with applications for big data
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc, Duke Univ

Buddhi Pantha

  • Advisor: Suzanne Lenhart
  • Dissertation Title: Antrax models involving immunology, epidemiology and controls
  • 1st Placement: Asst Prof, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College

Nathan Pollesch

  • Advisor: Lou Gross/Katherine Dale (ORNL)
  • Dissertation Title: Mathematical approaches to sustainability assessment and protocol and development for the sustainability target assessment resource for bioenergy (Bio-STAR)
  • 1st Placement: Post-doc, EPA

James Sunkes

  • Advisor: Stefan Richter
  • Dissertation Title: Hankel operators on the Drury-Arveson space
  • 1st Placement: Mathematician, Dynetics, Inc. (AL)

Liguo Wang

  • Advisor: Jan Rosinski
  • Dissertation Title: Numerical solutions of stochastic differential equations
  • 1st Placement: Sr. Quantittive Model Developer, Bank of Neew York Mellon Corp