About me

I am currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in mathematical biology mentored by Santiago Schnell in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame. I am working on the design & parameter estimation of enzyme-catalyzed experiments, and am also designing a mathematical model of a minimal mechanism for hormesis.

Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Nonlinear Studies and the Theoretical Biology and Biophysics Group at Los Alamos National Laboratory mentored by William Hlavacek and Yen Ting Lin. I estimated the basic reproduction number for COVID-19 in 50 US states and 280 urban areas, identifying regions at risk of high disease transmission and aiding future pandemic preparedness. I also designed a framework comparing methods of local sensitivity analysis for gradient evaluation in machine learning, optimization, and statistical inference applications involving ordinary differential equations.

I earned my doctoral degree from UC-DAVIS where I was supervised by Alan Hastings. For my dissertation research, I used nonlinear and stochastic modeling approaches to explore how complex systems, including those found in ecology, respond to critical transitions.

Prior to this, I was a Graduate Research Associate in the Center for Computational Biology at the University of Kansas, where I was supervised by Eric Deeds (now at UCLA).

I gratefully acknowledge Naveen Vaidya (now at San Diego State University) and Suzanne Lenhart (at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville) for my initial exposure to research in mathematical biology and optimal control theory, during my time as a Master’s Student at the University of Missouri - Kansas City.