College Welcomes 11 New Faculty Members This Fall
The College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences welcomes 11 new tenure/tenure-track faculty members to the University of Maryland this fall. Following are brief introductions to the new faculty.
Jacob Bedrossian is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics and the Center for Scientific Computation and Mathematical Modeling. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Case Western Reserve University and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2011. His research interests include mathematical analysis of partial differential equations, variational problems arising from fluid mechanics, solid mechanics, plasma physics or mathematical biology. Previously, he was a National Science Foundation and Cathleen Morawetz postdoctoral fellow at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University.
Daniel Dwyer is an assistant professor in the Department of Cell Biology & Molecular Genetics and the Institute for Physical Science and Technology. He received his Ph.D. in 2007 and joined Boston University as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. His research interests include characterizing biochemical and biophysical markers of bacterial cell death to treat infectious diseases.
Niklas Elmqvist is an associate professor in the university’s Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) and College of Information Studies. He earned his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. Before joining UMD, Elmqvist was an electrical and computer engineering associate professor at Purdue University. His research—which has been sponsored by the National Science Foundation, Google and Microsoft—focuses on information visualization, human computer interaction and visual analytics.
Thomas Goldstein is an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science and UMIACS. He received his Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2010. He completed postdoctoral fellowships at Stanford University and Rice University before joining UMD. Goldstein has received the Richard C. DiPrima Prize from the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics. His research interests include numerical optimization, elliptic partial differential equations, image processing and large-scale optimization.
Xuhua He is a professor in the Department of Mathematics. He received his B.S. from Peking College in 2001 and his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005, both in mathematics. Before joing UMD, he was an associate professor of mathematics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He received the Morningside Gold Medal of Mathematics in 2013. His research interests include algebraic groups, representation theory and arithmetic geometry.
Hans-Joachim Hein is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics. He received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2010 and joined UMD from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Université de Nantes in France. Hein’s research interests include Riemannian and complex geometry, Ricci curvature and Ricci Flow.
Daryl Kleist is an assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his Ph.D. in atmospheric and oceanic science from UMD in 2012. His research interests include using data assimilation to improve numerical weather prediction atmospheric predictability, ensemble forecasting methods and numerical modeling.
Sougata Roy is an assistant professor in the Department of Cell Biology & Molecular Genetics. Joining UMD from the University of California, San Francisco, Roy received the Herbert Boyer Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2007 and the National Institutes of Health Pathway to Independence Award in 2012. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in zoology from Presidency College in Calcutta, India. Roy received a second’s master’s degree in technology in biotechnology and genetic engineering from Jadavpur Univeristy in India and his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science in the Department of Microbiology and Cell Biology in 2006. Through his research, he aims to understand the cellular and molecular basis of cell-to-cell communication during development of multicellular organisms.
Eytan Ruppin is a professor in the Department of Computer Science and director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology in UMIACS. He received his Ph.D. from Tel Aviv University in 1993. He completed his postdoctoral program at UMD before returning to Tel Aviv University and becoming a professor in the Schools of Computer Science and Medicine. His research interests include systems biology, neural networks and personalized cancer research.
Nicholas Schmerr is an assistant professor in the Department of Geology. He received his B.S. in geology/earth science from Beloit College in Wisconsin in 2001 and received his Ph.D. in geological sciences from Arizona State University in 2008. Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Carnegie Institute for Science and at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Schmerr uses remote sensing tools in seismology to decipher the formation, dynamics and evolution of planetary surfaces and interiors.
Tingni Sun is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics. Previously, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Statistics Department at the University of Pennsylvania. She received her B.S. from the School of Mathematical Sciences at Peking University in 2007 and her Ph.D. in statistics from Rutgers University in 2012. Her research interests lie in developing methodologies and theories in high-dimensional statistics.
Media contact: Abby Robinson, 301-405-5845, abbyr@umd.edu
Writer: Nikita Mehta
University of Maryland
College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences
2300 Symons Hall, College Park, Md. 20742
www.cmns.umd.edu
@UMDscience
About the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences
The College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences at the University of Maryland educates more than 7,000 future scientific leaders in its undergraduate and graduate programs each year. The college's 10 departments and more than a dozen interdisciplinary research centers foster scientific discovery with annual sponsored research funding exceeding $150 million.
