An old copy of my Research Statement is available here.

Mathematical Biology

• Biomechanical Model
• The first task was to model appressorial formation of the rice blast fungus.  The final version is available directly from the Journal of Theoretical Biology, 240:1, 1-8, 2006.

• The next step is to examine the extremely important penetration peg that invades the cell wall and begins destroying the infrastructure of the rice leaf. This project has broadened to include the modeling of any bacterial filament. We examine the effect of tangential shear stress on the shape of the advancing filament. A novelty of our research is the ability to track marker points on our computational model similar to what is done experimentally. A preprint will be available soon.

• Fibrin Fibers
• I am working on this project with Callie Johnson in collaboration with Martin Guthold. More information will follow soon.

• Mathematical Ecology
• I am working on this project with Ben Leard in collaboration with D. Brian Walton. More information will follow soon.

•  I am working with four students during Summer 2007 on discrete models applied to two-gender populations.  This work is supported by the generous support of the MAA, NSF-DMS, NSA, and Moody's Foundation.  Click here for more information.

Materials Science

• Multigrain Thin Film Growth
• I just finished writing a paper from my dissertation that was accepted to Interfaces and Free Boundaries.  A preprint is available for download. The final version is available directly from the journal Interfaces and Free Boundaries, 8:1, 1-19, 2006.

• Screw Dislocations in BCC Metals
• In collaboration with Morris E. Fine and Michael S. Gagliano, I assisted in modeling screw dislocations in low carbon steels.  We found that screw dislocations assisted in lowering the Peierls stress.  This article is available for download.

• Surface Diffusion
• In collaboration with David L. Chopp and James A. Sethian, I assisted with a project to increase the speed of numerically calculating surface diffusion by linearizing the fourth order operator using the level set method.  This article is available for download.

Ethics

• I am also very interested in considering ethics that are too often ignored in the sciences.  I recently submitted a manuscript to Ethics and Medicine with a physician, Mary Adam, on the ethical considerations involved in simulation-based medical planning. A preprint is available for download. The final version is available from the journal Ethics and Medicine, 22:1, 23-29, 2006.

• I wrote an article that was published in Dignity titled "Will Biological Computers Enable Artifically Intelligent Machines to Become Persons?" (November 2003).