Research Interests

Scientific computing, numerical analysis, and applied analysis (PDEs and the calculus of variations, dynamical systems, and stochastic processes), with application in biophysics, computational biology, materials science, and continuum mechanics.

Education and Employment

• Ph.D., mathematics, University of Minnesota, 1996. Advisor: Mitchell B. Luskin.
• M.S., mechanics, University of Minnesota, 1996. Advisor: Richard D. James.
• CAM (Computational and Applied Mathematics) Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, UCLA, 1996-1999.
• Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, University of Maryland, 1998-2004.
• Associate Professor, 2004-2010, Full Professor, 2010-present, and Graduate Vice Chair, 2019-2023, Department of Mathematics, UCSD.
• Senior Scientist, NSF Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, UCSD, 2007-2014.
• Faculty, UCSD Quantitative Biology Ph.D. Program, 2015-present.

Membership

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics

Awards

• Excellent Teacher Award, Department of Applied Mathematics, Zhejiang University, China, 1988.
• Citation for excellence in teaching, School of Mathematics, University of Minnesota, 1996.
• Summer Research Award, Graduate School, University of Maryland, College Park, 2000.
• George W. and Carol A. Lattimer Faculty Research Fellow, Division of Physical Sciences, UCSD, 2019 - 2020.

Publications

Invited Presentations

• Plenary Talks, Distinguished Lectures, Short Courses, and Summer/Winter Schools
  • Plenary lecture, 52nd Annual Meeting of the Society of Natural Philosophy, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 22-24, 2014.
  • Invited 45-minute presentation, The 7th International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians, Beijing, China, August 6-11, 2016.
  • Distinguished Seminar in Computational and Mathematical Biology, Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and Center for Mathematical and Computational Biology, UC Irvine, October 25, 2012.
  • Inaugural Cold Place Math Biology Seminar (US midwest regional), January 20, 2021 (online).
  • The Lattimer Faculty Research Fellowship Lecture, UCSD, December 16, 2020.
  • Summer School: Coarse-Grained Physical Modeling of Biological Systems, the NSF Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, UCSD, August 11-15, 2008.
  • Principal lecturer (with Hong Qian), Short Course on Applied Mathematics in Biophysics, Taiwan National Center for Theoretical Sciences (NCTS), and Center of Mathematical Modeling and Scientific Computing (CMMSC), National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, December 14 and 15, 2010. Topics. Overview of Lectures.
  • Lecture series on PDEs with Application to Biological Physics, Tongji University, China, September 3-9, 2013.
  • KI-Net Summer School: Dynamics and Numerics for Non-local PDEs and Related Equations in the Physical and Biological Sciences, Iowa State University, May 4-7, 2014
  • Lecturer, Winter School: Modeling, Simulation and Analysis of Biology and Physiology, National Center of Theoretical Sciences and National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, December 21-30, 2015.
  • Applied math lecture series, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, November and December, 2018.

• Other Invited Presentations at Conferences and Workshops
  • Minisymposia in SIAM conferences: Annual meeting, 2002 and 2013; Mathematics and Materials, 2000 and 2004; Computational Science and Engineering, 2007; Analysis of PDEs, 2007, 2011, and 2019; Life Science, 2012.
  • Special session in AMS Joint Mathematics Meeting, 2003, and in Regional Meetings 2017 and 2023.
  • Symposia in ACS (Amer. Chem. Soc.) annual meetings: Philadelphia 2012 and San Francisco 2014.
  • SIAM Southern California (SoCal) Section Meeting and The 5th SoCal Applied Math Symposium (SoCAMS), 2005.
  • NSF math institutes: SAMSI workshop on soft matter materials, North Carolina, 2004; IMA workshop on solvation, Minneapolis 2008; IMA workshop on Math and Mechanics, Eugene, Oregon, 2015; MBI workshops on math biology, Columbus, Ohio, 2015 and 2020; Fields Institute workshop on math and drug deisgn, Toronto, 2018.
  • NSF KI-Net: Iowa State U., 2012; Iowa State U., 2014; UC Santa Barbara, 2016; and Iowa State U., 2017.
  • Mini-symposium, The 19th US National Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Austin, TX, June 19-23, 2022.
  • Other international conferences and workshops:
    • Numerical Microstructure, Oberwolfach, Germany, 2001;
    • Numerical Methods for Free Boundary Problems, University of Maryland, 2002;
    • Epitaxial Growth, Bonn, Germany, 2003;
    • Interface Problems, Singapore, Nov. 2004-Jan. 2005;
    • Nonequilibrium Interface and Surface Dynamics, Univeristy of Maryland, 2007;
    • Continuum Modeling of Biomolecules, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, 2009;
    • Interface Problems in Fluids and Materials, National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, 2009;
    • Numerical PDE, Guangzhou, China, 2010;
    • Taiwan Mathematical Society Annual Meeting, 2010 and 2015;
    • The Southeast Conference on Applied Mathematics, North Carolina State University, 2011;
    • Applied Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Research, Tianjin and Beijing, China, 2011;
    • CECAM Workshop on Liquid State Theory, Institut Henri Poincare, Paris, France, 2013;
    • Workshop on Computational Complex Charged Systems, Shanghai, China, 2013;
    • Free Boundary Problems, Isaac Newton Institute, UK, 2014;
    • The 52nd Meeting of the Society of Natural Philosophy, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2014.
    • Conferecne on Applied and Computational Mathematics, Wuhan, China, 2015;
    • Math Biology, Soochow/Duke-Kunshan/Shanghai Jiao Tong Univ., China, 2016, 2018, 2021, and 2023;
    • The 7th International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians, Beijing, China, 2016;
    • Multiscale Theory and Computation, Univ. Minnesota, 2017;
    • Mechbio Conference 2018, UC Irvine, 2018;
    • Multiscale Problems, Sanya, China, 2018.

Teaching

Students and Postdocs

Editorial Service

Associate editor, SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, 2023 - present.

Associate editor, Communications in Computational Physics, 2007-2016.

Selected Organizing Committees

• Various minisymposia in SIAM conferences: Math and Materials, 2000; Anal. PDE, 2011, Life Sci., 2012.
• Nonequilibrium Interface Dynamics, a three-week program, Univ. Maryland, 2003.
• Nanoscale Material Interfaces, a two-month scientific program, National University of Singapore, November, 2004 - January, 2005.
• International Workshop on Continuum Modeling of Biomolecules, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China, 2009.
• Workshop on Multiple Faces on Biomolecular Electrostatics, MBI, Ohio State Univ., 2015.
• International Conference on Mutliscale Theory and Computation, University of Minnesota, 2017.
• Southern California Applied Math Symposium (organizing or advisory committee), 2016 - present.

Reviews

• Proposal review panelist for multiple times for Department of Energy and National Science Foundation. Also, reviewer for multiple proposals for various founding agencies in the US and worldwide.
• Reviewed proposal for scientific organizations in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Russia.
• Reviewed externally 25 faculty promotion and recruitment cases.
• Refereed over more 160 research articles for than 50 jounrals, including PNAS, PRL, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., Biophys. J., ACS Omega, J. Chem. Phys., J. Phys. Chem., JCTC, JCC, PRE, J. Comput. Phys., Commun. Comput. Phys., J. Crystal Growth, Arch. Rational Mech Anal., Cont. Mech Thermodyn., SIAM journals (Reviews, Multiscale Model. Simul., SIMA, SIAP, SINUM, SiSC, etc.) Studies in Applied Math, Nonlinearity, Inst of Henri Poincare Analyse Non Linearie, Proc. A Royal Soc. London, Commun. Math Sci., Numer. Math, Math Comp., ESAIM: Math Modeling and Numer. Anal., Applied Numer. Math, et al.