{"624837":{"#nid":"624837","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Faculty Join the School of Computational Science and Engineering","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EThree new faculty members are set to join the School of Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) this year. The trio come from a diverse research background including computational biology, data science, and machine learning. The incoming faculty are Associate Professor\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EElizabeth Cherry\u003C\/strong\u003E, Assistant Professor\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003ESrijan Kumar\u003C\/strong\u003E, and Assistant Professor\u0026nbsp;\u003Cstrong\u003EXiuwei Zhang\u003C\/strong\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ECherry joined CSE August 2019 after teaching at the School of Mathematical Sciences at the Rochester Institute of Technology. While at the Rochester Institute, she found her researching stride in computational biology with a focus on cardiac electrophysiology and arrhythmias.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAccording to Cherry, \u0026ldquo;Sudden death is secondary to ventricular fibrillation and remains a leading cause of mortality in the United States. And the occurrence of atrial fibrillation, which is responsible for about 15 percent of all strokes, continues to rise.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIn efforts to address this issue,\u0026nbsp;Cherry\u0026nbsp;utilizes mathematical modeling and simulation of the electrical dynamics of cardiac cells and tissue.\u0026nbsp;This field of research is highly interdisciplinary and requires expertise in a number of sub-fields, including modeling, computational algorithms, scientific applications, and advanced interactive visualization.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EShe has won numerous awards and recognitions for her work in this field, including:\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cul\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003ERecipient of Trustees Scholarship Award, Rochester Institute of Technology, 2019\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003ERecipient of the Outstanding Student Mentor Award, Rochester Institute of Technology, College of Science, 2016\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003ERecipient of the Outstanding Faculty of the Year Award, Rochester Institute of Technology, College of Science 2013\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\u003C\/ul\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EKumar will join CSE Jan. 2020 after working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Computer Science Department at Stanford University where he specialized in machine learning and data science with applications in social media, graph mining, cybersecurity, and social computing.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EWhile at Stanford, his research group focused on machine learning for the web, creating network science, data science, and social computing models with the goal of enabling useful, safe, and trustful cyberspaces.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAccording to Kumar, \u0026ldquo;Our models extract knowledge from complex interactions between multimodal entities, such as users and content, in web-scale online social systems for better decision making. Our trust, safety, and integrity models are being used at major tech companies, including Wikipedia, Reddit, and Flipkart. Our research has also been widely covered by the popular press, including\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003ECNN\u003C\/em\u003E,\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003EThe Wall Street\u003C\/em\u003E\u003Cem\u003EJournal\u003C\/em\u003E,\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003EWired\u003C\/em\u003E, and\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003ENew\u003C\/em\u003E\u003Cem\u003E\u0026nbsp;York\u0026nbsp;Magazine\u003C\/em\u003E.\u0026rdquo;\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EKumar has won several distinguishing honors for his research in these areas, including:\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cul\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003EACM SIGKDD Doctoral Dissertation Award runner up, 2018\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003EDr. Larry S. Davis Doctoral Dissertation Award, 2018\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003EACM International World Wide Web Conference best paper award runner-up, 2017\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\u003C\/ul\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EZhang joined CSE Aug. 1, 2019 after working as a postdoctoral researcher in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department at U.C. Berkeley. Zhang\u0026rsquo;s research focuses on data science, method development, and data analysis with an emphasis on computational biology.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EWhile at Berkeley, her time centered on two different projects, each using single-cell sequencing. One project, called\u0026nbsp;\u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-019-10500-w\u0022\u003ESymSim\u003C\/a\u003E, published in the\u0026nbsp;\u003Cem\u003ENature Communications\u003C\/em\u003Ejournal, developed a simulator to model processes observed during single cell RNA sequencing experiments.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAccording to Zhang, the SymSim simulates single cell RNA data which allows researchers to benchmark various computational methods.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0026ldquo;What we really want to understand is what is controlling all the changes in the cells and track their differences,\u0026rdquo; she said. \u0026ldquo;On a mechanism level, we need to not only look at the RNA sequencing data but also integrate other types of data such as protein analysis.\u0026rdquo;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EZhang has won several distinguishing awards in the areas of computational biology and data anlysis, including:\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cul\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003ESwiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Fellowship for Prospective Researchers, 2012\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003ESNSF Advanced Postodc Mobility Fellowship, 2014\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\t\u003Cli\u003ESimons-Berkeley Research Fellowship, 2016\u003C\/li\u003E\r\n\u003C\/ul\u003E\r\n","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":"","field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Three new faculty joined the School of CSE"}],"uid":"34540","created_gmt":"2019-08-20 15:47:13","changed_gmt":"2019-08-20 15:47:36","author":"Kristen Perez","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2019-08-20T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2019-08-20T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"624660":{"id":"624660","type":"image","title":"CSE New Faculty Fall 2019","body":null,"created":"1565970730","gmt_created":"2019-08-16 15:52:10","changed":"1565970730","gmt_changed":"2019-08-16 15:52:10","alt":"Headshots of three new faculty joining CSE Fall 2019","file":{"fid":"237846","name":"newfaculty.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/newfaculty.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/newfaculty.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":2385720,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/newfaculty.jpg?itok=juHpvsbS"}}},"media_ids":["624660"],"groups":[{"id":"50877","name":"School of Computational Science and Engineering"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"4305","name":"cse"},{"id":"1646","name":"New Faculty"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39441","name":"Bioengineering and Bioscience"},{"id":"39431","name":"Data Engineering and Science"}],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EKristen Perez\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ECommunications Officer\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["kristen.perez@cc.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}