Full Department Directory

Thesis Adviser: Yakov Pesin

Amir Algom
S.Chowla Assistant Research Professor
217 McAllister Building
814 863 9052

Education: Ph.D., Indiana University, 1971
Research Interests: Operator algebras

George Andrews
Evan Pugh University Professor and Associate Head for Faculty Development
306 McAllister Building
814 865 6642
Education: Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1964
Research Interests: Number theory, partitions

Dylan Attwell-Duval
Assistant Teaching Professor
007 McAllister Building
814 865 3285

Education: Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1958

Thesis Adviser: George Andrews / Ae Ja Yee

Augustin Banyaga
Professor and Distinguished Senior Scholar
303 McAllister Building
814 863 2736
Education: Ph.D., University of Geneva, 1976
Research Interests: Symplectic, contact geometry and topology

Paul Baum
Evan Pugh University Professor
312 McAllister Building
814 863 0545
Education: Ph.D., Princeton University, 1963
Research Interests: Topology and operator algebras

Andrew Baxter
Associate Teaching Professor
006 McAllister Building
814 865 5002
Education: B.A. Millersville University (2005)
Ph. D. Rutgers University (2011)
Job Description: Associate Teaching Professor, Director of Pennsylvania Mathematics Initiative
Research Interests: Scholarship of teaching and learning,
Teacher preparation and professional development,
Enumerative combinatorics, permutation patterns

Andrew Belmonte
Professor
322 McAllister Building
814 865 2491
Education: Ph.D., Princeton University, 1994
Research Interests: Game Theory / Evolutionary Games, Mathematical Biology, Newtonian and non-Newtonian Fluid Dynamics, Laboratory Experiments.

Amine Benkiran
Assistant Teaching Professor
104H McAllister Building
814 865 7528

Leonid Berlyand
Professor
337 McAllister Building
814 863 9683
Education: Ph.D., Kharkov State University, 1984
Research Interests: PDEs, variational problems and applications to materials and biology

Kristin Berrigan
Administrative Support Assistant
107C McAllister Building
814 865 8462
Job Description: Serves as the liaison for short and long term, domestic and international, visitors. Responsible for coordinating travel, honorarium, and reimbursements, as well as tracking, processing visa applications, and managing the internal processes related to visitors. Reconciles purchasing cards and processes faculty reimbursements, as needed. Serves as backup for the department Finance Assistant/Facilities Coordinator. Provides support for George Andrews.

Job Description: Assists the Director of Graduate Studies; assists with recruiting efforts; provides information and requirements regarding graduate program; assists with the scheduling of 500 - level and special topics courses; prepares and processes letters of recommendations for graduate students; processes key requests and maintains key files.

James Brannick
Associate Professor
311 McAllister Building
814 863 2737
Education: Ph.D., CU Boulder, 2005
Research Interests: Lattice field theory, numerical solutions to PDEs, multigrid methods

Alberto Bressan
Eberly Family Chair Professor
201 McAllister Building
Education: Ph.D., University of Colorado, 1982
Research Interests: Hyperbolic Conservation Laws, Nonlinear Wave Equations, PDE Models of Biological Growth, Optimal Control, Differential Games and Applications

Nathanial Brown
Professor
320 McAllister Building
Education: Ph.D., Purdue University, 1999
Research Interests: Operator algebras

Education: Ph.D., Cornell University, 1970
Research Interests: Number theory, transcendence

Job Description: Supervises the Undergraduate Office Staff; secretary to the Director of Undergraduate Studies; provides information and requirements regarding the Undergraduate Program; works closely with math majors; assists with recruiting efforts; distributes and collects grade sheets; updates Undergraduate Handbook; Undergraduate Baccalaureate Degree Programs Bulletin.

Education: Ph.D., St. Petersburg State University, 1992.
Research Interests: Geometry, Dynamical Systems, Algorithmic Complexity

Christopher Byrne
Associate Professor
006 McAllister Building
814 863 4343
Education: Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, 1995
Research Interests: Game Theory, Optimization, Mathematical Modeling

Education: Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, 1987
Research Interests: Applied mathematics, computer simulations, materials sciences

Jeffrey Case
Associate Professor
221 McAllister Building
Education: Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara, 2010
Research Interests: Geometric analysis, conformal and CR geometry

Ana Chavez Caliz
Graduate Assistant
012 McAllister Building
Thesis Adviser: Sergei Tabachnikov

Xiaohang Chen
Graduate Assistant
009 McAllister Building
Thesis Adviser: George Andrews
Education: Academic Name: Shane Chern
Research Interests: Number theory, Partitions, q-Series, Sieve methods.

Long-Qing Chen
Donald W. Hamer Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
N229 Millennium Science Complex
814 863 8101
Education: Ph.D., MIT, 1990
Research Interests: Mathematical Modeling of Phase Transitions and Microstructure Evolution;
Phase-field method;
Microelasticity, micromagnetics, and electrostatics

Chien-Hua Chen
Graduate Assistant
432 McAllister Building
Thesis Adviser: Mihran Papikian

Thesis Adviser: Kirsten Eisentraeger

Thesis Adviser: Zhiren Wang and Federico Rodriguez Hertz

Jessica Conway
Assistant Professor
332 McAllister Building
814 863 9125
Education: Ph.D., Northwestern University, 2008

Thesis Adviser: Federico Rodriguez Hertz

Francesco Costanzo
Professor of Engineering Science and Mechanics and Mathematics
Office:N/A
814 863 2030

Thesis Adviser: Leonid Berlyand

Carina Curto
Professor
331 McAllister Building
814 863 9119
Education: A.B. Harvard University, 2000; Ph.D. Duke University, 2005
Research Interests: Theoretical and computational neuroscience.
Applications of algebra, geometry, and topology to neuroscience.

Russell deForest
Assistant Teaching Professor
005 McAllister Building
814 863 8937

Frank Deutsch
Emeritus
406 McAllister Building
Education: Ph.D., Brown University, 1966
Research Interests: Approximation theory, functional analysis

Thesis Adviser: Robert Vaughan
Education: B.Sc in Mathematics, Nankai University, 2016.

Kirsten Eisentraeger
Professor
330 McAllister Building
814 863 4127
Education: Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 2003
Research Interests: Number theory, arithmetic geometry

Thesis Adviser: Yuriy Zarkhin

Yuanyuan Feng
S.Chowla Assistant Research Professor
205 McAllister Building
814 863 9035

Darla Forsha Simpson
Associate Teaching Professor
403 McAllister Building
814 865 3329

Michael Francis
Graduate Assistant
008 McAllister Building
Thesis Adviser: Nigel Higson

Job Description: Research Engineer and caretaker of the William G. Pritchard Fluids Laboratory. Helps design and then builds apparati for research experiments, and educational and outreach demonstrations.

Stephanie Geyer
Administrative Support Assistant
107G McAllister Building
814 865 7520
Job Description: Assistant to the Department Head and Administrative Coordinator with various projects including all types of dossiers and sabbatical leaves; assists with award nominations; processes J1 and H1 visa paperwork for new hires; maintains some departmental informational lists; schedules appointments for the Department Head; assists the Director of the MASS Program; assists with recruiting efforts; provides information, procedures, and requirements for the MASS Program.

Thesis Adviser: Boris Kalinin
Education: B.S. Pure Mathematics, West Chester University, 2017
Research Interests: Partially hyperbolic dynamical systems, rigidity

Education: Ph.D., UCLA, 1966
Research Interests: Potential theory, complex variables and differential geometry

Thesis Adviser: Anatole Katok
Thesis Title: Normal Forms of Extensions
Degree Year: 1998
Career Bio: 1998-2001 Postdoc, Tufts University
2002- Teaching Professor, Pennsylvania State University
Education: Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, 1998
Research Interests: Dynamical Systems

James Hager
Teaching Professor and Assistant Director for Undergraduate Education
211 McAllister Building
814 441-4550
Education: Ph.D., Stanford University
Research Interests: Computational Complexity, Natural Language Processing, Automatic Theorem Proving and Program Synthesis,Formal Methods

Steven Hair
Associate Teaching Professor & Coordinator of Advising
104L McAllister Building
814 865 7528
Degree Year: 2010
Education: Ph.D. Penn State University, 2010

Ahmadreza Hajsaeedisadegh
Graduate Assistant
008 McAllister Building
Thesis Adviser: Nigel Higson
Education: B.Sc. & M.Sc., Sharif University of Technology

Degree Year: 2005

Wenrui Hao
Assistant Professor
208 McAllister Building
814 865 3881

John Harlim
Professor
214 McAllister Building
814 863 9024
Education: Ph.D. University of Maryland, 2006.
Research Interests: Applied Mathematics: Filtering multiscale systems, stochastic parameterization, uncertainty quantification, diffusion maps, non-parametric modeling

Diane Henderson
Professor
002 McAllister Building
814 867 5866
Education: Ph.D., Physical Oceanography, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego
Research Interests: Applied Math, Fluid Mechanics, Nonlinear Waves,

Nigel Higson
Evan Pugh University Professor
228 McAllister Building
Education: Ph.D., Dalhousie University, 1986
Research Interests: Operator algebras and K-theory

Cheryl Hile
Teaching Professor & Associate Head of Undergraduate Studies
104E McAllister Building
814 865 7528
Education: Ph.D., Engineering Science and Applied Mathematics, Northwestern University, 1993

Jingzhi Huang
Professor of Finance, David H. McKinley Professor of Business, Professor of Mathematics
350 Business Building
814-863-3566

Education: Ph.D., The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1969

Jack Huizenga
Assistant Professor
324 McAllister Building
Education: Ph.D., Harvard University 2012
Research Interests: Algebraic Geometry

Education: Ph.D., The Louisiana State University, 1958

Vladimir Itskov
Associate Professor
226 McAllister Building
814 865 1613
Education: Ph.D. University of Minnesota, 2002
Research Interests: Applied algebraic topology, and geometry.

Education: Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute Technology, 1963

Education: Ph.D., Universitas Carolina Prague, 1966

Kris Jenssen
Professor
202 McAllister Building
814 863 9123
Education: Ph.D., Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 1998
Research Interests: Partial differential equations, conservation laws, compressible fluid flow

Boris Kalinin
Professor
338 McAllister Building
814 865 5181
Education: Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, 2000
Research Interests: Dynamical Systems, Ergodic Theory, Geometry

Svetlana Katok
Professor
301 McAllister Building
814 863 0628
Education: Ph.D. University of Maryland, College Park, 1983
Research Interests: Automorphic forms, hyperbolic geometry and Fuchsian groups, analysis on symmetric spaces, symbolic dynamics, application of dynamical systems to analysis and number theory.

Degree Year: 2013

Thesis Adviser: Jeffrey Case

Job Description: Provides information to students and faculty regarding the Undergraduate Program; processes add/drop forms; solves student problems; contacts textbook publishers to order desk copies for instructors; communicates textbooks with the Penn State Bookstore and distributes desk copies of textbooks; provides room capacity numbers. Serves as a back up to the Undergraduate Office.

John Kopper
S.Chowla Assistant Research Professor
203 McAllister Building
814 865 3783

Thesis Adviser: Robert Vaughan
Thesis Title: On the Squarefree Values of Polynomials
Degree Year: 2020

Job Description: Visiting dates: 7/1/19 - 6/30/21

Thesis Adviser: Alexei Novikov
Research Interests: Partial Differential Equations, Probability, Stochastic Processes

Mark Levi
Department Head and Professor
107 McAllister Building
814 865 7527
Education: Ph.D., New York University, 1978
Research Interests: Dynamical systems and their applications in physics and engineering

Wen-Ching W. Li
Distinguished Professor
326 McAllister Building
814 865 1669
Education: Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1974
Research Interests: Automorphic forms, number theory, coding theory, and spectral graph theory

Education: Ph.D., Cornell University, 1993
Research Interests: Mathematical economics, mathematical finance, computational economics

Xiantao Li
Professor
219C McAllister Building
814 863 9081
Education: B. S., Peking University, 1998; PhD, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2002.
Research Interests: Computational mechanics, bio-molecular models, approximation of stochastic models, quantum-mechanical calculations.

Education: Ph.D., New York University, 1983
Research Interests: Integrable systems, mathematical physics, and Poisson geometry

Caitlin Lienkaemper
Graduate Assistant
402 McAllister Building
Thesis Adviser: Carina Curto

David Little
Teaching Professor & Academic Advisor
104G McAllister Building
814 865 7528
Education: Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, 2000
Research Interests: Combinatorics

Education: Ph.D., New York University, 1995
Research Interests: Partial differential equations, calculus of variations, applied mathematics

Lyle Long
Professor of Aerospace Engineering and Mathematics
814 865 1172
Education: B. M. E., Mechanical Engineering, Univ. of Minnesota, 1976
Research Interests: Intelligent systems software, neural networks, computational fluid dynamics, software engineering, and high performance computing

Yushuang Luo
Graduate Assistant
020 McAllister Building
Thesis Adviser: Wenrui Hao

Richard Mansfield
Emeritus
433 McAllister Building
Education: Ph.D., Stanford University, 1970

Anna Mazzucato
Distinguished Senior Scholar, Professor and Associate Head of Administration
305 McAllister Building
814 863 2036
Education: Ph.D., University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 2000
B.S./M.S. University of Milan, Italy, 1994
B.S./M.S. University of Milan, Italy, 1994
Research Interests: Partial differential equations, fluid mechanics, elasticity, harmonic and microlocal analysis, inverse problems

Job Description: Coordinates and distributes evening and final math examinations, including conflict and make-up exams; works closely with SDR to accomodate students with disabilities; hires and assigns undergraduate graders and proctors; handles credit by examination processes; assists calculus coordinator and works closely with all other coordinators.

Education: Ph.D., University of Texas, 1966
Research Interests: Banach Spaces, Approximation Theory

Jason Morton
Associate Professor
219B McAllister Building
814 863 0444

Gary Mullen
Emeritus
304 McAllister Building
814 865 2312
Degree Year: 1974
Education: Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, 1974
Research Interests: Finite fields and combinatorics

Bharath Narayanan
Assistant Teaching Professor
410 McAllister Building
814 863 5220

Toan T. Nguyen
Associate Professor
238 McAllister Building
814 863 4123
Education: Ph.D., Indiana University, 2009
Research Interests: Partial Differential Equations, Fluid Dynamics, Conservation Laws, Kinetic theory.

Education: Ph.D, Applied Mathematics 2016, University of Colorado Boulder
Research Interests: Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Rapidly-Rotating Flows, Oceanography

Thesis Adviser: Kirsten Eisentraeger

Alexei Novikov
Professor
310 McAllister Building
814 863 2738
Education: Ph.D., Stanford University, 1999
Research Interests: Applied Analysis and Probability

Education: Ph.D., University of Warwick, 1983
Research Interests: Mathematical Physics, QFT,
Higher Representation Theory
Operator Algebras

Guodong (Gordon) Pang
Harold and Inge Marcus Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Professor and Professor of Mathematics
363 Leonhard Building
814 863 1001

Education: Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2003
Research Interests: Algebraic Number Theory

Siddhi Pathak
S.Chowla Assistant Research Professor
217 McAllister Building
814 863 9052

Dmitrii Pedchenko
Graduate Assistant
417 McAllister Building
Thesis Adviser: Jack Huizenga

Yakov Pesin
Distinguished Professor
213 McAllister Building
814 865 0012
Education: Ph.D., Moscow State University, 1979
Research Interests: Dynamical systems, ergodic theory, Riemannian geometry, dimension Theory, mathematical and statistical physics

Anton Petrunin
Professor
333 McAllister Building
814 863 0931
Education: Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1995
Research Interests: Geometry

Asok Ray
Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Mathematics
329 Reber Building
814 865 6377

Jan Reimann
Associate Professor
233 McAllister Building
Education: Ph.D., University of Heidelberg (Germany), 2004
Research Interests: Mathematical logic, algorithmic information theory, fractal geometry and geometric measure theory

Timothy Reluga
Associate Professor
424 McAllister Building
814 865 3883
Education: PhD, University of Washington Department of Applied Mathematics, 2004
BS, Tufts University, Majoring in Mathematics and Biology, 1998
Research Interests: Mathematical biology and applied mathematics

Joseph Roberts
Associate Teaching Professor/Calculus Coordinator
104 McAllister Building
814 865 7528
Education: Ph.D., University of Michigan, 2013
Research Interests: Euler equations, conservation laws

Thesis Adviser: Nigel Higson
Thesis Title: Mackey Bijection for some Reductive Groups and Continuous Fields of Reduced C*-Algebras
Degree Year: 2019
Research Interests: Representation Theory, Lie Theory, Operator Algebras

Victoria Sadovskaya
Associate Professor
426 McAllister Building
814 863 4140
Education: Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, 2000
Research Interests: Dynamical Systems and Ergodic Theory

Thesis Adviser: Leonid Berlyand

Thesis Adviser: Nigel Higson

Thesis Adviser: Yakov Pesin

Education: Ph.D., University of Oslo, 1998
Research Interests: Hyperbolic conservation laws, relaxation, partial differential equations, numerical simulation, numerical analysis, control theory

Thesis Adviser: Leonid Berlyand

Jonathan Siegel
Postdoc
316 McAllister Building
814 863 9059

Stephen G. Simpson
Emeritus Professor of Mathematics
Office:N/A
+1 814 404 6176
Education: Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1971
Research Interests: Mathematical logic, foundations of mathematics, recursion theory, set theory, combinatorics

Eric Simring
Teaching Professor
108 McAllister Building
814 867 5687

Stanley Smith
Associate Professor/ Director of Online Instruction
222 McAllister Building
814 865 7528
Education: Ph.D., University of Wyoming, 1992

Caleb Springer
Graduate Assistant
015 McAllister Building
Thesis Adviser: Kirsten Eisentraeger

Christine Stachniewicz
Associate Teaching Professor
007 McAllister Building
814 865 3285

Mathieu Stiénon
Professor
325 McAllister Building
814 865 3812

Job Description: Oversees the department budget office; maintains financial records; assists Faculty with research proposal preparation; coordinates office assignments, building repairs and maintenance; assigns key/card reader access for new employees.

Sergei Tabachnikov
Professor
112 McAllister Building
Education: Ph.D., Moscow State University, 1987
Research Interests: Differential topology, dynamical systems, symplectic geometry and differential geometry

Naser Talebizadeh Sardari
Assistant Professor
313 McAllister Building
Education: Ph.D., Princeton University
Research Interests: Number Theory,
sphere packing,
quantum computing,
expander graphs
and quantum chaos

Thesis Adviser: Robert Vaughan

Arkady Tempelman
Professor
326 Thomas Building
814 863 9024
Education: Ph.D., Vilnius State University, 1975
Research Interests: Ergodic theory, statistics

Thesis Adviser: Federico Rodriguez Hertz
Education: B.Sc. in Mathematics & B.A. in Philosophy, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey, 2016.
Research Interests: Dynamics

Leonid Vaserstein
Professor
215 McAllister Building
814 863 0584
Education: Ph. D., Moscow State University, 1969
Research Interests: Classical groups over rings and algebraic K-theory; number theory; operations research; systems with local interactions

Robert Vaughan
Professor
335 McAllister Building
Education: B. Sc., University of London, 1966
Research Interests: Analytic number theory

Dominic Veconi
Graduate Teaching Associate
413 McAllister Building
Thesis Adviser: Yakov Pesin
Education: BA in Mathematics: Hamilton College
Research Interests: Dynamical systems, smooth ergodic theory, thermodynamic formalism

Kurt Vinhage
Anatole Katok Center for Dynamical Systems and Geometry Assistant Research Professor
309 McAllister Building
814 863 6398
Thesis Adviser: Anatole Katok
Thesis Title: Smooth rigidity of genuinely higher-rank homogeneous flows
Degree Year: 2016
Career Bio: NSF postdoctoral research fellow, University of Chicago, 2016 - present
Education: Bachelor of Arts, Mathematics, Florida State University, 2010

Aissa Wade
Professor
317 McAllister Building
814 865 7311
Education: Ph.D., University Montpellier 2, France.
Research Interests: Differential Geometry; symplectic geometry; Poisson geometry; contact geometry.

Zhiren Wang
Associate Professor
308 McAllister Building
Education: Ph.D. Princeton University, 2011
Research Interests: Ergodic theory; homogeneous dynamical systems

Thesis Adviser: Alberto Bressan

Education: Ph.D., Princeton University, 1964

Linda Westrick
Assistant Professor
318B Mcallister Building
814 863 2738

Education: Ph.D., University of Idaho, 1988
Research Interests: Evolutionary dynamics of human civilization

Kelli Wilkinson
Administrative Support Coordinator
107F McAllister Building
814 863 9051
Job Description: Responsible for the general management of the department offices; act as personnel coordinator for the department; oversees faculty recruiting, hiring, promotion and tenure dossiers, second and fourth year reviews, leaves of absence, faculty activity reports, departmental committees, and departmental communications; coordinates departmental events and departmental development efforts.

Matthew Willyard
Associate Teaching Professor
001 McAllister Building
814 863 8500

Thesis Adviser: Vladimir Itskov

Education: Ph.D., Emory University, 1995
Research Interests: Graph theory

Ping Xu
Distinguished Professor
329 McAllister Building
814 865 3517
Education: Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley, 1990
Research Interests: Symplectic geometry and mathematical physics

Jinchao Xu
Verne M. Willaman Professor
314 McAllister Building
814 865 1110
Education: Ph.D., Cornell University, 1989
Research Interests: Numerical methods for partial differential equations and applications

Education: Ph.D., Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), 2000
Research Interests: Partition theory, q-series, enumerative combinatorics, special functions

Thesis Adviser: Anton Petrunin
Research Interests: Geometric Group Theory, Metric Geometry, Riemannian Geometry.

Education: Habilitation, Leningrad State University, 1986
Research Interests: Algebraic geometry, Number Theory

Thesis Adviser: Alberto Bressan

Yuxi Zheng
Francis R. Pentz and Helen M. Pentz Professor of Science
229 McAllister Building
Education: Ph.D 1990 The University of California at Berkeley.
Research Interests: Partial Differential Equations

Ludmil Zikatanov
Professor and Associate Head for Computing
239 McAllister Building
Education: Ph.D. Sofia University, St. Kliment Ohridski, 1995
Research Interests: Computational Mathematics, Numerical Analysis

Albena Zikatanova
Associate Teaching Professor
407 McAllister Building
814 863 9670