Four NC State mathematics-affiliated students were named NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) awardees this weekend, highlighting the department’s growing strength in undergraduate research, biomathematics, and uncertainty quantification.

Two of the recipients are first-year Biomathematics Ph.D. students: Schuyler Brennan and Miriam Van de Water. Brennan’s research focuses on developing mathematical models to guide clinical decision-making for closing portosystemic shunts in dogs, a project conducted in collaboration with Nathan Nelson (Radiology, NC State College of Veterinary Medicine). Van de Water’s proposed GRFP project, “Using Scientific Machine Learning to Discover Disease Transmission Equations in a Bi-Level Optimization Problem,” aims to develop scientific machine learning methods that learn behavioral–epidemiological transmission dynamics from data, enabling data-informed bilevel optimization of public health policy and individual compliance.

The other two awardees—John Miller and Camden Toumbleston—are senior MA/AMA majors and alumni of the department’s DRUMS REU program. Miller (DRUMS 2024, mentored by Mansoor Haider) and Toumbleston (DRUMS 2025, mentored by Mette Olufsen) have continued their research through the NSF-RTG UQ4Life program.

In UQ4Life, Miller is participating in (and helping lead) a working group studying lung morphometry, alongside graduate students Elliot Maceda (Statistics) and Sebastian Reyes Roza (Biomathematics), and faculty collaborators Nathan Josephs (Statistics), Radmila Sazdanovic (Mathematics), and Megan Miller (Assistant Professor, VMI). Toumbleston contributes to a UQ4Life working group on cardiovascular dynamics, with graduate students Carter Hall (Statistics) and Troy Larsen (Mathematics) and faculty Alen Alexanderian (Mathematics), Sujit Ghosh (Statistics), and Mette Olufsen (Mathematics). Toumbleston’s trajectory spans sensitivity analysis work with Alexanderian, continued REU research, and ongoing UQ4Life collaborations.

Congratulations to all four awardees for this outstanding achievement.

Below is a photo of the four awardees. From left to right (Camden UG, John UG, Schuyler Biomath, Miriam Biomath).