Chris H. Rycroft

Professor of Mathematics

Chris is an applied mathematician and has been at UW Madison since summer 2022. Prior to starting at UW Madison, Chris was a professor in the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences from 2014–2022. From 2007–2013 Chris lived in Berkeley, California where he was a postdoctoral scholar and Morrey Assistant Professor in the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department. He obtained his Ph.D. in Mathematics in 2007 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his bachelor's degree from the University of Cambridge in 2001.

Chris grew up in the Lake District, a rural and beautiful area in the northwest corner of England. This kindled a lifelong love of the outdoors and he has enjoyed hiking in every place that he has lived. Chris also likes astronomy, photography, science fiction, cooking, and color coordination.

Email / Google Scholar / ORCID / CV / GitHub / Flickr / Last.fm
Fun fact: Co-founded the Cambridge University Jugglers' Association

Michael S. Emanuel

Ph.D. student in Applied Mathematics

Michael got his undergraduate math degree from Harvard in 1999 and spent 17 years working in finance before returning to graduate studies in 2018 and completing a master's of data science at Harvard IACS in 2020. Michael's scientific focus is on numerical simulations and data analysis for porous electrodes in flow battery and carbon capture applications. Michael has three children and enjoys distance running and playing bridge and piano with his kids. In his younger days he placed 90th in the 2011 Boston Marathon in a time of 2:29:52.

GitHub / LinkedIn

Yue Sun

Postdoctoral scholar in Applied Mathematics

Yue completed her Ph.D. in the Rycroft Group from 2020&8211;2024, and she is currently a postdoctoral scholar. She studies the computational methods for simulating fluid–structure interaction. Her research interests are computational fluid dynamics, numerical methods, and physics-based animation. She completed her undergraduate degree at New York University Shanghai, with one major in Mathematics and two minors in Interactive Media Arts and Urban Design & Architectural Studies. She received her master's degree in Computational Science and Engineering from Harvard University in 2020.

When not busy tracking bugs in C++ code, Yue likes to cook, bake, watch (animated) movies, and play Switch games.

Email / Personal homepage

Xiaoxiao (Catherine) Ding

Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics

Catherine completed her Ph.D. in spring 2024, using numerical and data-driven techniques to study the shape programmability of composite materials, such as textiles. She is also an experienced experimentalist in materials testing. She obtained an integrated bachelor's and master’s degree in Engineering with First Class Honours from Imperial College London in 2018. Her broad research interests are in elasticity, geometry and optimization of functional materials.

Catherine was born in China and spent half of her teenage years in the UK before coming to the US. She likes traveling and picking up new languages to connect with people from other backgrounds. During her spare time not traveling, Catherine designs graphics for Harvard Science in the News and volunteers to encourage underrepresented groups to study STEM.

Email / GitHub

Danyun He

Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics

Danyun completed her Ph.D. in spring 2024. She is broadly interested in reinforcement learning and mathematical modeling, and she studied several problems in mathematical biology during her graduate studies. She obtained a bachelor's degree in Mathematics at the City University of Hong Kong in 2018, before completing a master's degree in Computational Science and Engineering at Harvard IACS in 2019. Danyun enjoys cycling, hiking, solving puzzles, and playing pool.

Email / GitHub

Madelyn Leembruggen

Ph.D. in Physics

Madelyn grew up primarily in Dayton, Ohio, and graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 2018 with bachelor's degrees in Astrophysics, Physics, and Mathematics. Madelyn wants to understand how microscopic (dis)order gives rise to macroscopic observables. As a graduate student, this meant using discrete computational models to simulate continuous thin sheets; as an undergraduate, pursuing this interest meant studying theoretical axion particles as a dark matter candidate.

Madelyn is additionally interested in inclusive pedagogy, science outreach, and making physics a more equitable space for people from all backgrounds. Madelyn enjoys taking portraits of friends, tending her houseplants, nerding out about literally anything, and cooking Indo-Dutch feasts.

Email / Personal homepage #1 / Personal homepage #2
Fun fact: Runs a cheese-tagram account dedicated to The Beatles.

Jiayin Lu

Postdoctoral scholar in Applied Mathematics

Jiayin completed her Ph.D. in the Rycroft Group in January 2024 and continued as a postdoctoral scholar for the spring, before moving to the UCLA Mathematics Department in summer 2024. She is interested in scientific computing and numerical methods, computational geometry and computer graphics. She is working on parallel computation of Voro++, and is studying shear band formation in bulk metallic glasses through numerical simulation. She graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2018 with bachelor's degrees in Mathematics, Statistics and Finance.

Jiayin is from Guangzhou, China, and she misses the food there a lot! Jiayin likes art and design, photography, nature, traveling, music and making things.

Email / Personal homepage / Flickr