About

Short Biography

I have been a professor of mathematics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, since 2007. Before that I was a postdoc at UC, Irvine, in Orange County California, where I worked with John Lowengrub and Vittorio Cristini on complex fluids, crystal microstructure, and cancer progression. I got a BS degree in mathematics in 1996 from Clarion University and did graduate work in mathematics at Virginia Tech and Penn State after that. I received my PhD in 2003 from the University of Virginia, where I studied engineering physics, working with the nicest person in the world, Dr. William C. Johnson.

For the most part, I teach courses in numerical analysis, and, with Abner Salgado, I wrote a graduate-level textbook on the subject entitled Classical Numerical Analysis: A Comprehensive Course, published by Cambridge University Press this year (2023). You can check it out on Amazon or Cambridge Core. When I can, I also teach some courses in analysis and PDE, which are a lot of fun.

Research

I work in the intersection of numerical analysis, partial differential equations, and soft matter physics. I build models to study heat, mass, and current flow and the formation of interfaces in complex fluids and materials, and I design efficient numerical methods to get approximate solutions.

Citations

My citation information can be found in the Google Scholar, Scopus, and other links below, and my UTK Faculty Profile can be found here. I was recognized by Web of Science as a highly cited researcher in 2020 and 2022.

Favorite (Mostly Maths) Quotes

“No self-respecting architect leaves the scaffolding in place after completing his building.” –C.F. Gauss