Thomson Problem
This is an old project that started in the summer of 2004 when I was worked as a research assistant in condensed matter physics at Syracuse University under Professor Mark Bowick, Professor Alan Middleton, and Professor Cristina Marchetti. Syracuse brought me back in the winter of 2004 and for half of the summer in 2005 to consult with Professor Alex Travesset to continue to development and contribute to other projects.
I ran into a number of good problems for undergraduate-me:
- Writing and streamlining a fast, custom graphics engine.
- Learning computational geometry and deriving lightning fast Delaunay triangulation algorithms for spherical and toroidal topologies.
ComputeFest Computational Challenges
Challenge Game and Code 2013-2014
ComputeFest is an annual series of workshops, symposiums, and panels to introduce and discuss computational science in research and applications. I co-organized ComputeFest in 2014 and developed and hosted the Student Computational Challenge in 2013 and 2014.
The computational challenge pits undergraduate and graduate students against each other in a test of their computational skills. In 48 hours, teams apply their knowledge of machine learning, stochastic analysis, evaluation heuristics, high performance computing, and hacking in the programming language of their choice to develop an AI to beat the other teams in a game of our choosing.
In 2013, the game was "comFoosball", a stochastic foosball/soccer-like game in which the teams devised strategies for placing and moving their players. In 2014, the game was "Stack 'Em", an algorithmically interesting card-like game of ordering "bricks".
Drawing courtesy of 11-year-old Nikolas Protopapas.
Abstract Art Generator
I wrote this program one lonely day over winter break. It simply generates random functions using a symbolic expression tree. I had a great time optimizing it with tree reductions, simplifications, and partial evaluations. Now it's able to compute some great images in a reasonable amount of time!ICM Competition
Published IMAP version, The most ridiculous problem statement for a 96-hour project ever.I participated in the 2006 Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM) with Tristan Sharp (Physics) and Michael Martin (Physics). The ICM is a 96-hour competition where teams tackle complex problems for which they must formulate, describe, apply, and analyze a mathematical model in a comprehensive final report. It is designed to develop and advance interdisciplinary problem-solving skills as well as competence in written communication.
Our paper, AIDS: Modeling a Global Crisis (and Australia), was recognized as one of the top four outstanding papers in a pool of 225 participating teams and was selected for publication in The UMAP Journal 27.2. The paper describes a mathematical model for the spread of HIV, the future economic impact of treating HIV under preventative, retroactive, and proactive treatments, and the impact of these models under the emergence of resistive strains of HIV. The model was applied to 6 countries around the world using current UNAIDS data and analyzed for accuracy and predictive strength.
