About Us

UT Austin’s student chapter of SIAM was founded in 2008 to foster interactions between members of the applied mathematics community at UT Austin, across departments, institutes, and professional marks. We aim to provide a forum for discussing applied and computational mathematics and to help members prepare for future STEM careers in academia and industry. We also promote publications, conferences, prizes, and other opportunities offered by SIAM.

Chapter Officers

Jon Staggs

President

Ph.D. Student at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences.

Jon is a native Texan that enjoys aquatic sports and advocates for alternative keyboard layouts. He attended UT Austin for undergrad where he studied mathematics then attended the University of Washington for his Masters in Applied Math. His research interests are in coexistence theory, structured population modeling, and biodiversity. Specifically, exploring life history strategies in structured models for forest communities.

BS, Mathematics, The University of Texas at Austin
MS, Computational and Applied Mathematics, University of Washington

Benjamin Thomas

Vice-President

Ph.D. Student at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences.

BS, Computational Mathematics, BS, Biological Engineering, Louisiana State University

Joseph Kump

Secretary/Treasurer

Ph.D. Student at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences.

I work in the CRIOS group with Dr. Patrick Heimbach. My interests include HPC, optimized linear solvers, automatic differentiation, and their use in ocean and sea ice modeling.

Arjit Seth

Event Coordinator

PhD Student at Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences

Arjit Seth is a graduate PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin. At present, his research focuses on enabling digital twin applications via scientific machine learning methods. Arjit's interests include mathematics, computation, physics, and aerospace engineering. His prior research has covered a broad range of topics, such as amphibious aircraft design, group theory, and integrating machine learning techniques with traditional aircraft design processes. He has also worked on improving aerospace engineering education in Hong Kong by introducing programming and computational methods into the educational process.

Undergraduate - B.Tech Aeronautical Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology. Masters - MPhil, Mechanical Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Noah Reef

Social Media Coordinator

Noah Reef grew up in Palm Springs, California, and graduated from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, with a B.S. in Applied Mathematics in 2024. In the fall of 2024, he began his Ph.D. studies in the Computational Science, Engineering, and Mathematics (CSEM) program. His hobbies include playing chess, reading, and programming.

BS, Applied Mathematics, California State Polytechnic University Pomona

William Suan

Undergraduate Representative

William Suan is a third-year undergraduate studying math and Plan II Honors. He attended secondary school at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA. He is always eager to learn about new problems and applications of mathematics.

Graham Pash

Senior Advisor

PhD Student at Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences.

I work broadly on uncertainty quantification methods to enable scalable predictive digital twins as a framework for robust decision making with applications to various engineering and health systems.

Faculty advisors

Prof. Todd Arbogast

FACULTY ADVISOR

I work on development of a Eulerian-Lagrangian and WENO schemes for advective flow; the study of mixed methods and cell-centered finite differences for nonlinear and geometrically irregular elliptic problems; the modeling and simulation of multi-phase flow through porous media, including fractured and vuggy media, with applications to petroleum production and groundwater resources; numerical homogenization, subgrid upscaling, and domain decomposition of heterogeneous media; and simulation of the dynamics of the Earth's mantle.

Prof. Clint Dawson

FACULTY ADVISOR

I use numerical methods for partial differential equations, specifically flow and transport problems in computational fluid dynamics; scientific computing and parallel computing; finite element analysis, discontinuous Galerkin methods; shallow water systems, hurricane storm surge modeling, rainfall-induced flooding; ground water systems, flow in porous media, geochemistry; data assimilation, parameter estimation, uncertainty and error estimation.

Alumni

Shreyas Gaikwad
(President, Senior Advisor)
Evan Scope Crafts
(President)
Venugopal Ranganathan
(Vice President)
Sophia Epstein
(Industry Liaison)
Mike Truong
(Social Media Coordinator)
Naila Hajiyeva
(Undergraduate Event Coordinator)
Mohammad Afzal Shadab
(President, Senior Advisor)
Meghana Palukuri
(Senior Advisor, Vice President)
Tyler Masthay
(Industry Liaison)
Pablo Rocha Gomez
(Undergraduate Representative)
Gopal Yalla
(President, Senior Advisor, Vice President)
Brendan Keith
(President, Vice President)
Tom O'Leary-Roseberry
(Treasurer)
Timothy Smith
(Industry Liaison)
Siddhant Wahal
(Industry Liaison)
Maximilian Bremer
(Event Coordinator)
Andrew Ma
(Math Department Representative, Industry Liaison)
Teresa Portone
(President)
Aditya Jain
(Vice President)
Jacob Sansom
(Undergraduate Representative)
Pearl H. Flath
(Founding President)