Given by the the National Science Foundation, CAREER awards go to newer faculty members who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through research, education and blending these two fields. Awardees are given yearly grants in order to further their research efforts. 

After receiving his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in 2007, Qiu joined the Georgia Tech faculty in the fall of 2013. His research focuses on bioinformatics and computational biology, targeting statistical signal processing, machine learning, control systems and optimization.

While mathematical modeling is essential in the research of complex biological systems, experimental data is often lacking.With his CAREER project, Qiu seeks to help close the information gap that exists between both limited data and complex modeling. Concentrating on experimental design and model reduction in systems biology, Qiu’s award will be used to develop computational algorithms to identify experiments that minimize parameter uncertainty. He also seeks to develop model-reduction algorithms based on manifold learning, explore their ability to identify mechanisms for the adaptation behavior, and apply the proposed algorithms to study protein signaling pathways and cell differentiation processes. 

The algorithms will be implemented in open-source software, which will be offered to researchers from several disciplines. Qiu will be awarded over $440,000 over four years to support his research. 

by Ansley Thomas