General
I am a PhD student in Computer Science at Virginia Tech. My academic advisor is Prof. Dr. Adrian Sandu. I am currently working as a Research Assistant and Sysadmin for the Computational Science Lab. My research interests span across the fields of computer science, applied math and engineering. During the PhD program, I got familiarized with computational sciences that deal with natural phenomena. I developed numerical models to simulate various dynamic systems and their adjoint counterparts for sensitivity analysis. I also became proficient at debugging and hacking them or other models developed by the community. For me, this implied building a good understanding at the lower level, of numerical methods and scientific computing. One particular topic of interest is high-performance computing, as in accelerating large-scale computations either through parallelization or preconditioning. At the same time, I employed these numerical models in high-level applications such as parameter estimation, control and optimization.
The particular problem I am investigating is called "variational data assimilation", used to reconcile model predictions with observations for applications such as weather forecast. It is cast in the framework of nonlinear optimization and constrained by the differential equations underlying the numerical model. We are interested in assessing the contribution of each observation in reducing the error of the estimate state of the system. The final purpose is to use this information to deploy sensor networks based on an adaptive strategy to target measurements at critical locations.
I have always been a curious and analytical mind, ready to learn, build and share. I started reading at the age of four, using computers at the age of seven and proactively tinkering with Internet technologies at the age of fourteen. I was also interested from a young age in traveling and being exposed to different civilizations. I have a friendly and patient personality. I enjoy involving myself in group activities, tutoring and teaching. I am assertive, have the ability to work independently and do not shy away from responsabilities.