Research / Areas of ResearchComplex Systems and Data Science
As we end the first fifth of the 21st Century, human societies face global challenges of unimaginable scale. Global pandemics pose the risk of killing millions of people and paralyzing economies. Climate change threatens coastal cities, imperils food supply chains, and contributes to the extinction of numerous species around the globe. Unlike many problems facing engineers in the past, the solution to these challenges involves not only the development of new technologies but also an accounting for human decisions and behaviors. For example, while the consequences of climate change pose particular large costs for coastal cities such as Houston, TX, the economic implications for the area of a decline in the importance of fossil fuels would be staggering.
These complex challenges require not reductionist approaches, or optimal technical strategies, but the understanding of the numerous interlocked components and sub-systems that are part of or interact with human societies. Complexity science has for the last 40 year developed a set of approaches and techniques that allows for the exchange of knowledge among the disciplinary silos and for the manipulation of objects without predefined roles or interactions. These include nonlinear dynamics, fractal geometry, statistical physics, network science, and recently, data science.
Faculty
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Luis AmaralErastus Otis Haven Professor
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Linda BroadbeltSarah Rebecca Roland Professor
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Michael JewettWalter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological EngineeringEngineering biology, systems engineering of molecular translation, metabolic biosensors, deep learning to advance bio-discovery and bio-design |
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Joshua LeonardAssociate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering
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Jeffrey LopezAssistant Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering (beginning September 1, 2021)Automated and high throughput experimentation for accelerated materials discovery and development, energy storage, electrochemical interfaces |
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Julius LucksAssociate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering
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Richard LueptowProfessor of Mechanical Engineering (and by courtesy) Chemical and Biological Engineering
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William MillerProfessor of Chemical and Biological Engineering
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Chad MirkinGeorge B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science and Engineering, and (by courtesy) Chemical and Biological Engineering and Biomedical EngineeringMirkin engineers functional and dynamic colloidal systems of immense complexity by cleverly tuning particle surface chemistry |
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Milan MrksichVice President for Research
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Monica Olvera de la CruzLawyer Taylor Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Chemistry and (by courtesy) Chemical and Biological Engineering, Physics and Astronomy |
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Julio OttinoWalter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and (by courtesy) Mechanical Engineering
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Aaron PackmanProfessor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and (by courtesy) Mechanical Engineering and Chemical and Biological Engineering |
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Randall SnurrChair of Chemical and Biological Engineering
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Danielle Tullman-ErcekAssociate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering
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Keith TyoAssociate Professor of Chemical and Biological EngineeringPredicting enzyme behavior using cheminformatics and kinetic models to enable sustainable biosynthesis (in collab. with Broadbelt) |