MICDE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Co - Director of the Center for Scientific Software Infrastructure
- Member of Management & Education Committee
- Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences
Brendan Kochunas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Science. Dr. Kochunas work focus on high performance computing methods, especially parallel algorithms for the 3D Boltmann Transport Equation. He is the lead developer and primary author of the MPACT (Michigan Parallel Characterstics based Transport) code. Currently, leading the development of MPACT and its application within CASL (www.casl.gov) constitutes his research activities.
Dr. Kochunas is a co-director of the Center for Scientific Software Infrastructure, and the lead instructor of MICDE course Methods and Practice of Scientific Computing. He has created a novel and integrated class curriculum that immerse U-M students in many HPC tools and resources, and teaches them to effectively use these in scientific computing research.
Job Titles:
- Professor, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering
- Member of Management & Education Committee
Bryan Goldsmith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering. His works focus on the development of novel catalysts and materials. The world is facing a growing population, mass consumerism, and rising greenhouse gas levels, all the while people strive to increase their standard of living. Computational modeling of catalysts and materials, and making use of its synergy with experiments, facilitates the process to design new systems since it provides a valuable way to test hypotheses and understand design criteria. His research team focuses on obtaining a deep understanding of catalytic systems and advanced materials for use in sustainable chemical production, pollution abatement, and energy generation. They use first-principles modeling (e.g., density-functional theory and wave function based methods), molecular simulation, and data analytics tools (e.g., statistical learning and data mining) to extract key insights of catalysts and materials under realistic conditions, and to help create a platform for their design.
Job Titles:
- Member of Management & Education Committee
- Professor
- Professor, Biomedical Engineering and Surgery
Alberto Figueroa is a Professor with a joint appointment in Biomedical Engineering and Vascular Surgery. He works on computational methods for patient-specific cardiovascular simulation.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Education
- Member of Management & Education Committee
Chris Quintana is an Associate Professor in the School of Education. He is a principal investigator in the Center for Highly Interactive Classrooms, Curricula, and Computing in Education. His research is focused on software-based scaffolding for middle school science students, including the development of scaffolded software tools, scaffolding frameworks for software, and learner-centered design processes. He leads the NSF Zydeco Project to explore how web-based technologies and mobile devices can be integrated to connect science classrooms and museums to expand science learning opportunities.
Profesor Quintana holds a Ph. D. in Computer Science from the University of Michigan, and is a member of MICDE's Education committee whose goal is to continuously review and develop the institute's educational programs and campus wide teaching of computational sciences, in and out of the classrooms.
Job Titles:
- High Performance Computing Consultant, Information Technology
Job Titles:
- Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Ellen's work includes mechanical behavior of materials including polymers, elastomers and soft tissue; tissue engineering of tendon and muscle constructs; constitutive modeling of growth, remodeling and functional adaptation in soft tissue; deformation mechanisms in polymers; crystal transformation mechanisms in semi-crystalline polymers; split Hopkinson pressure bar testing of polymers and elastomers for high strain rate applications including crashworthiness in automotive applications.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
- Director of the PhD in Scientific Computing Program Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering
- Member of Management & Education Committee
Job Titles:
- Research Professor at ICPSR
- Research Professor Emeritus, ICSPR
George Alter is Research Professor at ICPSR and the Population Studies Center and Professor of History at the University of Michigan. His research grows out of interests in the history of the family, demography, and economic history, and recent projects have examined the effects of early life conditions on health in old age and new ways of describing fertility transitions. He is also involved in international efforts to promote research transparency and data sharing.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Member of Management & Education Committee
Job Titles:
- Member of Management & Education Committee
- Professor
- Professor, Aerospace Engineering
- Samir and Puja Kaul Director of the Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery and Engineering / Professor, Aerospace Engineering
Prof. Duraisamy is interested in the development of computational models, algorithms and uncertainty quantification approaches with application to fluid flows. This research includes fluid dynamic modeling at a fundamental level as well as in an integrated system-level setting. An overarching theme in his research involves the use of simulation and data-driven methods to answer scientific and engineering questions with an appreciation of the effect of modeling uncertainties on the predicted results. Prof. Duraisamy's group is also interested in developing numerical algorithms to operate on evolving computational architectures such as GPUs. He is the Director of the Center for Data-Driven Computational Physics.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Research Scientist
- Associate Research Scientist, Radiology
- Member of Management & Education Committee
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Michigan Flint Campus
- Associate Professor, Computer Science - Flint
Mark Allison is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Michigan Flint Campus. His primary area of research is model-driven engineering targeting complex software systems. Domains under study are autonomous and autonomic cyber-physical systems. Currently he is exploring Autonomous Underwater vehicles in swarms. Prof. Allison's secondary research area relates to Computer Science pedagogy.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Graduate Certificate in Computational Discovery and Engineering ( CDE ) Research Professor and Adjunct Lecturer, Astronomy
- Member of Management & Education Committee
- Research Professor and Adjunct Lecturer
The Ahmed lab studies behavioral neural circuits and attempts to repair them when they go awry in neuropsychiatric disorders. Working with patients and with transgenic rodent models, we focus on how space, time and speed are encoded by the spatial navigation and memory circuits of the brain. We also focus on how these same circuits go wrong in addiction, epilepsy and traumatic brain injury.
Job Titles:
- Chemistry
- Member of Management & Education Committee
From elementary chemical reactions to exciton dynamics in solar cells, chemistry is a particularly rich field for atomistic simulation. Research in the Zimmerman group develops and employs a broad spectrum of computational techniques to chemical problems. Special emphasis is taken on creating new, practical computational methods for application to problems that are considered out-of-reach to standard simulation methodologies. For instance, automated prediction of chemical reactions has long been considered impossible using quantum chemical simulation. To break this limitation, the Zimmerman group is creating new techniques for locating reaction paths and products of catalytic reactions, with the goal of predicting the outcome of reactions prior to experiment. These tools use a combination of chemical intuition, applied mathematics, and massively parallel computation to achieve an impressive level of automation and predictive value.
MICDE is an initiative of the College of Engineering, the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, and the U-M Office of Research
Job Titles:
- Member of Management & Education Committee
- Professor
- Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, CSE
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, Industrial & Operations Engineering
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Assistant Professor, Industrial & Operations Engineering
- Member of Management & Education Committee
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
MICDE is an initiative of the College of Engineering, the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, and the U-M Office of Research
Job Titles:
- Training & Education Manager
Sarah McNitt (she/her) is the Training & Education Manager at MICDE. She has a Master's of Science degree in Human-Computer Interaction from the University of Michigan's School of Information and a Bachelor of Arts degree in French from Albion College.
Sarah has spent her career advising students and connecting them with the information and resources they need. She has previously worked in international education at Miami University, the University of Iowa and the University of Michigan. Sarah has been with MICDE since 2022.
Job Titles:
- Member of Management & Education Committee
- Professor
- Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- Mathematics
Silas Alben is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics, and the Director of the Applied & Interdisciplinary Mathematics program. He uses theoretical analysis, and develops numerical methods and models of problems arising from biology, especially biomechanics and engineering. Some of his group's current applications are piezoelectric flags, flag fluttering in inviscid channel flow, snake locomotion and jet-propelled swimming.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Graduate Certificate in Computational Neuroscience / Professor, Mathematics and Anesthesiology
- Member of Management & Education Committee
- Professor
- Professor, Mathematics and Anesthesiology
Victoria Booth is a Professor in the Department of Mathematics and an Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology. Her interdisciplinary research in mathematical and computational neurosciences focuses on constructing and analyzing biophysical models of neurons and neural networks in order to quantitatively probe experimental hypothesis and provide experimentally-testable predictions. Her research provides continuous reciprocal interactions between modeling and experimental results.
Prof. Booth and her colleagues are constructing neurophysiologically based models of the neuronal networks and neurotransmitter interactions in the brainstem and the hypothalamus that regulate wake and sleep states. She is also addressing the question of the influence of intrinsic neuron properties and network topology on the generation of spatio-temporal activity patterns in large-scale neural networks.
Job Titles:
- Member of Management & Education Committee
- Professor
- Professor, Department of Political Science
Job Titles:
- Communications Specialist
Background
Wendy Sutton is a communications specialist in the Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR). She collaborates with the Michigan Institute for Computational Discovery & Engineering (MICDE) to develop and implement strategic communications plans to increase awareness of MICDE's innovative research.
Before joining the OVPR, Wendy served as a Public Relations Coordinator at the University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. She holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor, Digital Manufacturing Technology