Oswin So
Oswin So is a PhD candidate in aeronautics and astronautics whose research seeks to develop safe machine-learning methods for critical autonomous systems and bridge the gap between simulation and real-world systems. In previous research, Oswin has drawn on MathWorks’s Simulink to develop safe controllers for cases where the dynamics may be complicated but are known. As a MathWorks Fellow, he will build on this work, applying tools from reachability analysis and reinforcement learning to dev ...
Stephan Stansfield
Stephan Stansfield is a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering who conducts basic research to understand the neural control of movement and applied research to develop assistive devices. His MathWorks Fellowship will support work in two areas. The first is a study of human interactions with dynamically complex objects, combining human subject experiments with MATLAB-based simulations using an input-shaping control strategy. His results suggest that that the brain may greatly simplify represe ...
Rodrigo Cavalcanti Alvarez
Rodrigo Cavalcanti Alvarez is a PhD student in nuclear science and engineering whose research is focused on thermal sciences and the scientific development of the energy field to advance low-carbon electricity generation. Specifically, Rodrigo investigates the process of boiling heat transfer and critical heat flux (CHF), a critical parameter for design and safety considerations. The broad aim of his work is to characterize the physics of boiling with enhanced efficiency and accuracy through ...
Simran Chowdry
Simran Chowdry is a PhD candidate in nuclear science and engineering who studies magnetic reconnection in astrophysical plasmas. Specifically, she is exploring the impact of radiative cooling processes and instabilities on the energy partition and dynamics of plasmoid instability in magnetic reconnection. Simran’s achievements to date include uncovering new phenomena taking place because of the coupling between two distinct plasma instabilities and the development of a novel algorithm to tr ...
Dongchel Shin
Dongchel Shin is a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering whose research focuses on creating quantum and precision metrology platforms that probe fundamental physics and pave the way for future industrial technology. As a MathWorks Fellow, Dongchel will take a lead role in a cutting- edge experiment to observe gravitational interaction between two quantum systems, with the goal of answering a central question in modern physics: “Is gravity quantum?” His contributions include leading expe ...
Pip Knight
Pip Knight is a PhD candidate in materials science and engineering who seeks a deeper understanding of nanoscale kinetics to further the design of nanomaterials. Specifically, she is studying the growth and epitaxy of 3D metals and semiconductors on 2D materials. As a MathWorks Fellow, Pip will investigate titanium silicides and titanium oxides, which can catalyze the splitting of water into hydrogen and oxygen using energy from the sun, a clean way to produce hydrogen without fossil fuels. T ...
John Z. Zhang
John Z. Zhang is a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering whose research examines the interaction between electrostatic and mechanical forces in piezoelectric materials and in high- intensity electric fields. Through modeling, he seeks to understand these interactions and provide useful guidelines for design. As a MathWorks Fellow, John’s first project involves designing a totally implantable microphone and amplifier for cochlear implants. The sensor uses a bending piezoelectric cantilever ...
Hyeonseok Kim
Hyeonseok Kim is a PhD candidate whose research interests are focused on in-space manufacturing of nanosatellite (CubeSat) hardware, with the goal of delivering innovative, lower-cost technologies to democratize access to space. Specifically, he is addressing the challenge that a majority of CubeSats have no means of propulsion, which greatly limits their capabilities. Supported by a MathWorks Fellowship, Hyeonseok will expand his work on 3D-printed electrospray thrusters for CubeSats that ar ...
Daniel Pfrommer
Daniel Pfrommer is a PhD candidate in electrical engineering and computer science whose research seeks to advance the theoretical analysis and algorithmic development of high- dimensional control systems. As a MathWorks Fellow, Daniel will focus on the approximation of classical control algorithms by neural network-based models. His current work aims to develop new methods for learning latent state representations in high-dimensional, partially observed dynamical systems, performing filtering ...
Akash Ball
Akash Ball is a PhD candidate in chemical engineering whose research aims to use machine learning and computational chemistry to discover novel materials for applications in water desalination, industrial water treatment, and rare earth element recovery. Specifically, he is working to identify materials with unprecedented water permeation and ion-separation performance and creating models to explain how to optimize the transport properties of porous metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). MOFs are c ...