Current Graduate Research Assistants
Yuzhuo Chu
Yuzhuo Chu is a doctoral student in biochemistry and cellular and molecular biology. Her research focuses on a new mathematically-based approach to score protein modeling predictions.
Mauricio Gonzalez-Forero
Mauricio Gonzalez-Forero is a doctoral student in mathematical evolutionary biology. His dissertation research focuses on social evolution, particularly the question of the evolution of organismality.
John Martin
John Martin is a doctoral student in computer science. His research focuses on large scale text mining specifically related to Latent Semantic Analysis and related technologies. At NIMBioS, he is helping develop and implement an administrative database system.
Adam Sullivan is a doctoral student in biomedical engineering, working under Dr. Xiaopeng Zhao. His research focuses on dynamic modeling of the life cycle of Toxoplasma gondii in order to further investigate the transmission dynamics of the disease.
Ashutosh Wadhwa is a doctoral student in the Natural Resources program, Center for Wildlife Health at the University of Tennessee, working under Dr. Shigetoshi Eda. His research focuses on mathematical modeling of Johne’s disease for development of a new control strategy.
Past Graduate Research Assistants
Erin Bodine
Erin Bodine earned a Ph.D. in Mathematics in 2010. Her dissertation focused on applying optimal control theory to species augmentation. She won the Univ. of Tennessee Math Department’s Graduate Student Achievement Award. After graduating, Bodine accepted a position as assistant professor of mathematics at Rhodes College in Memphis.
Edgar Duenez-Guzman
Edgar Duenez-Guzman earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 2010. His dissertation research focused on the evolution of complex adaptations through modeling the evolution of pleiotropy and mutational correlations using individual based models with explicit genetics. After graduating, Duenez-Guzman accepted a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University.
Boloye Gomero
Boloye Gomero is a doctoral student in mathematics. Gomero works for Dr. Suzanne Lenhart in the department of mathematics at the University of Tennessee. Her research focuses on parameter sensitivity analysis for mathematical models of cholera.
Rachel Leander
Rachel Leander earned a Ph.D. in Mathematics. Her dissertation focused on optimal control of invasive species models with discrete time and of models of oscillator networks. After graduating, Leander accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at the Mathematical Biosciences Institute at The Ohio State University.
Premal Shah
Premal Shah graduated with a Ph. D in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in May 2011 and received the Jim Tanner Award for Outstanding Dissertation. His dissertation research focused on developing models of protein translation and studying how various selective forces drive the evolution of codon usage bias. After graduating, Shah accepted a postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Dr. Joshua Plotkin at the University of Pennsylvania.
Henian Xia
Henian Xia is a doctoral student in biomedical engineering. Xia works for Dr Xiaopeng Zhao in the department of mechanical, aerospace, and biomedical engineering at the University of Tennessee. His research focuses on optimal control for cardiac alternans, a marker of sudden cardiac arrest.
Requests for NIMBioS support for graduate research assistants are considered in the spring semester of each year for funding in the subsequent academic year. The request deadline is February 1 for assistantship activities beginning the following August. For more information about graduate assistantships at NIMBioS and the application process, click here.
