I am from St. Simons Island, a coastal town in southeast Georgia. It's a small, tight-knit community that was a wonderful place to grow up in. I still consider it home and use it as a place to rejuvenate after months of hard work.
I obtained my BSc from the University of Notre Dame in Mechanical Engineering and Economics. While at Notre Dame, I pushed myself to gain the most of my undergraduate experience. Over my four years, my passions slowly became clearer as I jumped from opportunity to opportunity, some more successfully than others. I am glad for my nonlinear path; I have attended conferences in Singapore and worked in a national lab in New Mexico, and each experience has taught me something important about myself.
I am currently in London for a MSc in Applied Mathematics, and I plan to obtain a PhD after my MSc.
My academic passions
My belief is that in most fields, better decisions can be made with better information. On that front, I like applying computational and data-based techniques to model the world around us. I am passionate about improving the quality of information given to both human and machine decision makers without compromising on computational cost. Furthermore, I believe that quality information includes expressing where our information is uncertain.
My experience
I have most experience in two sectors. First, I have done work in using numerical methods and discretization to model and simulate complex environments. I am particularly interested in the Finite Element Method, meshing techniques, areas where numerical methods give insufficiently accurate answers, and reduced-order modeling.
Second, I have collected and used data for sensing, localization, and control for autonomous systems. I have done work on sensor fusion, Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM), machine-learning based sensing algorithms, and autonomous control of robots.
In the future, I would like to continue developing my skills while incorporating uncertainty quantification, something I believe is extremely important for decision-making.
Hobbies and other interests
Reading. Some important books I have read include: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb, Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby, and Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.
Hiking/Running/Walking. Being in New Mexico this past summer was probably one of the most epic adventures I have ever been on. I spent a lot of time near in the Jemez Mountains, the Sandia Mountains, and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. It was a state that is somewhat indescribable and feels like an alien planet.
Football/Soccer. I think football at its best is an art form. It illustrates a lot of points I have about modeling and data very well, but that is a tangent for another time. Speaking of modeling and data, recently, I have been trying to use Markov Chains based on football game-states to simulate Premier League tables. It is unfinished but fun. My yearlong affiliation is to QPR as they are my closest financially reasonable club.