i teach engineering at vanderbilt university in nashville —

research overview

a visual summary of the theoretical foundations and application areas that shape my work on dynamic systems, control, optimization, and infrastructure is included below.

my research develops control-theoretic and optimization methods for large-scale infrastructure systems. the figure below is the rough map i keep coming back to: uncertainty, nonlinearity, scale, networks, and computation on one side; power, water, transportation, security, and climate-aware infrastructure on the other. most of my publications ask how we can make decisions or certify behavior in systems that are too large, too coupled, or too uncertain for textbook models to behave nicely.

on the theory side, i use tools from control, estimation, convex and nonconvex optimization, graph theory, and dynamical systems to study stability, controllability, observability, sensor placement, state and parameter estimation, cyber-physical security, and robustness. a recurring theme is turning messy infrastructure questions into certificates, bounds, algorithms, or feedback laws that remain useful when models are nonlinear, data is incomplete, and uncertainty refuses to be polite.

on the application side, the publications move between power grids, water distribution and stormwater systems, transportation networks, buildings, and coupled natural-engineered systems. the common thread is large-scale infrastructure: how to monitor it, optimize it, control it, protect it, and understand the failure modes before they become expensive in the real world.