Applied and Computational Mathematics

Fluid marbling in the Madison Applied Math Lab

Scattered rain clouds versus an organized storm (a squall line).

Jet striking an inclined plane.

Applied and Computational Mathematics at UW-Madison

Welcome to the Applied and Computational Mathematics Group at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Our faculty members, postdoctoral fellows, and students are involved in a variety of research projects, including fluid dynamics, partial and stochastic differential equations, scientific computing, biology, biochemistry, topology, and data science.

To pursue graduate studies in Applied and Computational Mathematics, see the Mathematics Graduate Program.

News and opportunities

Full a full list of recent events within the department, see the Mathematics Department Website.

• Parvathi Kooloth (former Ph.D. student of Leslie Smith) has been awarded the Dissertation Prize of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) (Fall 2023).

• Anjali Nair (Ph.D. student of Qin Li) has accepted a postdoctoral position as Kruskal Instructor at the University of Chicago (Fall 2023).

• Jason Torchinsky (Ph.D. student of Sam Stechmann) has accepted a postdoctoral position at Sandia National Lab (Fall 2023).

• Yue Sun (Ph.D. student of Chris Rycroft) won the top prize in the Gallery of Fluid Motion for her video (linked here), based on work in the AMEP lab (Fall 2023).

• The AMEP lab appeared in Sift and Winnow and in the Top 5 UW L&S stories of the year (Fall 2023).

• Jean-Luc Thiffeault was named a fellow of the American Physical Society (Fall 2022).

• Leslie Smith was named a fellow of the American Mathematical Society (Fall 2022).

• Maurice Fabien has joined the department (Fall 2022).

• Chris Rycroft has joined the department (Fall 2022).

• Tom Edwards (former Ph.D. student of Leslie Smith and Sam Stechmann) will begin a new job at Google in Fall 2021.

• Quanling Deng (former postdoc of Sam Stechmann and Nan Chen) has accepted a faculty position at the Australian National University to begin in January 2022.

• Ying Li (former Ph.D. student of Sam Stechmann) will begin as a Data Scientist at Wells Fargo Bank in November 2021.

• Leonardo Andrés Zepeda-Núñez has joined the department (Fall 2019).

• Amy Cochran has joined the department (Fall 2019).

• Jason Torchinsky (Ph.D. student of Sam Stechmann) has been awarded a Computational Science Graduate Fellowship from the Department of Energy (Spring 2019).

• Nan Chen has joined the department (Fall 2018).

• Will Mitchell (former Ph.D. student of Saverio Spagnolie) has accepted a faculty position at Macalester College to begin in Fall 2019.

• Lei Li (former Ph.D. student of Saverio Spagnolie) has accepted a faculty position at Shanghai Jiao Tong University to begin in Fall 2018.

• Jean-Luc Thiffeault was featured in Washington Post's Wonkblog on his paper exploring the mathematical history of taffy pullers. link to paper

• Gheorghe Craciun was featured in SIAM News on his recent proof of the Global Attractor Conjecture. link to paper

Workshops

• Mathematical Fluids, Materials & Biology Ann Arbor, MI, June 12-15, 2019
• RTG Workshop: Turbulent and Coherent Convection 224 Ingraham Hall, May 27-29, 2015

Seminars

Organized by Applied Math

• Applied and Computational Math Seminar (Fridays at 2:25pm, VV 901)
• Graduate Applied Math Seminar (Tuesdays at 3:45pm, Grainger 1190)
• Physical Applied Math Group Meeting (Rycroft/Spagnolie/Thiffeault) (Wednesdays at 4:00pm, VV 901)
• Networks Seminar (Anderson/Johnston/Craciun) (Wednesdays at 2:25pm, VV 901)

Other seminar series of interest

• Mathematics Colloquium (Fridays at 4:00pm, VV B239)
• Probability Seminar (Thursdays at 2:25pm, VV 901)
• SILO Seminar (Wednesdays at 12:30pm, 3rd floor WID)
• Chaos and Complex Systems Seminar (Tuesdays at 12:05pm, 4274 Chamberlin Hall)
• Physics Department Colloquium (Fridays at 3:30 pm; 2241 Chamberlin Hall)
• AOS Colloquium (Mondays at 3:30 pm; 811 AOSS building)
• Astronomy Colloquium (Thursdays at 3:45 pm; 4421 Sterling Hall)

Tenured and tenure-track faculty

David Anderson: (Duke, 2005) probability and stochastic processes, computational methods for stochastic processes, biochemical networks, mathematical/systems biology.

Sigurd Angenent: (Leiden, 1986) partial differential equations.

Nan Chen: (Courant, 2016) uncertainty quantification, data assimilation, geophysics, stochastic modeling, and data science.

Amy Cochran: (Cornell, 2013) population health science, computational psychiatry.

Gheorghe Craciun: (Ohio State, 2002) mathematical biology, biochemical networks, biological interaction networks.

Alberto Del Pia: (Padova, 2009) mathematical optimization, discrete optimization, data science, theoretical computer science

Maurice Fabien: (Rice, 2019) high-performance scientific computing, numerical analysis

Shamgar Gurevich: (Tel Aviv, 2006) Representation theory of groups, algebraic geometry, applications to signal Processing, structural biology, mathematical physics.

Qin Li: (Wisconsin, 2012) applied & computational mathematics.

Hanbaek Lyu (Ohio State, 2018) discrete probability, dynamical systems, networks, optimization, machine learning

Gloria Mari-Beffa: (Minnesota, 1991) differential geometry, applied math.

Laurel Ohm (University of Minnesota, 2020) Analysis of PDE arising in biofluid mechanics.

Sébastien Roch: (Berkeley, 2007) applied probability, statistics and theoretical computer science, with emphasis on biological applications.

Chris Rycroft: (MIT, 2007) mathematical modeling, computational mathematics

Leslie Smith: (MIT, 1988) applied mathematics. Waves and coherent structures in oceanic and atmospheric flows.

Saverio Spagnolie: (Courant, 2008) fluid dynamics, biological locomotion, soft matter, computational mathematics.

Sam Stechmann: (Courant, 2008) applied and computational math, climate and atmospheric science, scientific machine learning.

Jean-Luc Thiffeault: (Texas, 1998) fluid dynamics, mixing, biological swimming and mixing, topological dynamics.

Fabian Waleffe: (MIT, 1989) applied and computational mathematics. Fluid dynamics, hydrodynamic instabilities. Turbulence and unstable coherent flows.

Leonardo Andrés Zepeda-Núñez: (MIT, 2015) machine learning, numerical analysis, wave propagation, inverse problems.

Postdoctoral fellows and researchers

Thomas Chandler: (Oxford, 2021) soft matter, liquid crystals, complex fluids

Anakewit (Tete) Boonkasame: (UW Madison, 2012)

Marko Budišić: (UC Santa Barbara, 2012) dynamical systems

Yongyong Cai: (National University of Singapore, 2012)

Arthur Evans: (UCSD, 2011) soft matter, complex fluids

Matthew Johnston: (University of Waterloo, 2011) dynamical systems

Current graduate students

List of current graduate students (updated spring 2024).

Student	Advisor (1)	Advisor (2)	Program Start Year	Research Area
Zinan Wang	Sigurd Angenent
Yinling Zhang	Nan Chen		2021
Marios Andreou	Nan Chen		2022
Zhongrui Wang	Nan Chen		2023
Byran Xu	Nan Chen		2023
Haley Colgate	Amy Cochran		2020
Enkhzaya "Eza" Enkhtaivan	Amy Cochran
Jiaxin Jin	Gheorghe Craciun	Chanwoo Kim
Jenny Yeon	Gheorghe Craciun
Polly Yu	Gheorghe Craciun
Hongxu Chen	Chanwoo Kim	Qin Li
Shi Chen	Qin Li
Zhiyan Ding	Qin Li
Anjali Nair	Qin Li		2018
Jenny Wei	Qin Li	Yingyu Liang
Borong Zhang	Qin Li	Leonardo Zepeda-Núñez
Parvathi Madathil Kooloth	Leslie Smith
Varun Gudibanda	Leslie Smith		2020
Carsen Grote	Saverio Spagnolie		2023	Fluid-structure interactions
Jingyi Li	Saverio Spagnolie	Laurel Ohm	2022	Active suspensions in complex fluids
Hanzhang Mao	Saverio Spagnolie		2023	Free boundary problems in nonlinear elasticity
Tianhong Huang	Samuel Stechmann
Jason Torchinsky	Samuel Stechmann		2018	Data assimilation, multi-model communication, atmospheric modelling
Carrie Hongfei Chen	Jean-Luc Thiffeault
Yu Feng	Jean-Luc Thiffeault
Bryan Oakley	Jean-Luc Thiffeault

Graduate course offerings

Fall 2023

• Math 632: Introduction to Stochastic Processes (David Keating, Sebastien Roch)
• Math 703: Methods of Applied Mathematics I (Leslie Smith)
• Math 714: Methods of Computational Math I (Sam Stechmann)

Spring 2024

• Math 632: Introduction to Stochastic Processes (David Clancy)
• Math 704: Methods of Applied Mathematics II (Jean-Luc Thiffeault)
• Math 705: Mathematical Fluid Dynamics (Saverio Spagnolie)
• Math 715: Methods of Computational Math II (Maurice Fabien)
• Math 717: Stochastic Computational Methods (Nan Chen)
• Math 801: Topics in Applied Mathematics

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