https://gataslab.org/members/index.htmlThe members of the lab come from diverse perspectives with unique training. We are always looking for students and researchers with a desire to solve problems by leveraging abstract applications in novel science and engineering applications. Accepting applications for PhD Students in both MAE and CISE. Mathematically minded students would benefit from the MAE degree program specializing in Dynamics, Systems, and Control. For MAE applicants, the GATAS lab is particularly well suited to students interested in either Dynamics, Systems, and Control for optimization and dynamics projects or Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) for the Decapodes project. For CISE students, the GATAS lab is a good fit for students interested in High Performance Computing (HPC), Machine Learning, Data Science, Applied and Computational Mathematics, Computer Algebra, and Programming Language Theory. Research Projects for Undergraduates and Graduate Students in MAE, CISE, and Math Research Scientists and Postdocs in MAE, CISE, and Math Email fairbanksj [at] ufl [dot] edu for all new position inquiriesHugoenhttps://gataslab.org/members/jamesfairbanks/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://gataslab.org/members/jamesfairbanks/index.htmlRolePrincipal InvestigatorProgramComputational Science and EngineeringDegreePhDStatusAsst. Prof.Lab member since2021 James Fairbanks is an assistant professor in the department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and affiliated with the Institute for Computational Engineering, and the Florida Institute for National Security. My research focuses on new paradigms in scientific computing, specifically applied category theory. This approach to mathematical modeling focuses on structure and structure preserving relationships between mathematical objects. The GATAS lab studies these topics and supports software-focused research in the AlgebraicJulia Ecosystem. We collaborate closely across the HWCOE and with external collaborators at NIST, AFRL, and the Topos Institute.https://gataslab.org/members/georgerauta/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://gataslab.org/members/georgerauta/index.htmlProgramCISEDegreePhDStatusStartingLab member since2022 George Rauta is a PhD student with a focus in numerical linear algebra and high-performance computing. I believe that advances in the field of computer science are dependent on the existence of a highly performant computational foundation. It is critical that this foundation considers the theoretical aspects of algorithms, the method by which they are implemented in code and how they interact with the physical designs of modern processing and memory units.https://gataslab.org/members/richardsamuelson/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://gataslab.org/members/richardsamuelson/index.htmlDegreePhDStatusDoctoral studentLab member since2024 Website GitHub Richard Samuelson is a doctoral student researching category theory, convex analysis, and high-performance computing. He has made significant contributions to the CliqueTrees.jl package, implementing the ChordalLDLt multifrontal factorisation that underpins sparse symmetric positive-definite linear solves. These improvements accelerate nullspace and global-section computations in the CellularSheaves.jl library and enable more efficient compositional methods across the lab’s projects. Selected publications Graphical Quadratic Algebra – ICTAC 2025 (Lecture Notes in Computer Science). Dario Stein, Fabio Zanasi, Robin Piedeleu, and Richard Samuelson. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-11176-0_18 A Categorical Treatment of Open Linear Systems – Logical Methods in Computer Science, 2025. Dario Stein and Richard Samuelson. DOI: 10.46298/lmcs-21(3:11)2025https://gataslab.org/members/joanaboubarcelo/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://gataslab.org/members/joanaboubarcelo/index.htmlProgramMAEDegreePhDLab member since2024 LinkedIn Joana Bou Barcelo is a PhD student in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida, working at the boundary between the GATAS Lab’s compositional methods and nonlinear control. Her work applies cellular sheaves to coordination problems in multi-agent systems. In Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Multi-Target Tracking using Cellular Sheaves, written with Tyler Hanks, Cristian F. Nino, Austin Copeland, Warren Dixon, and James Fairbanks, the team poses the tracking of several unknown targets as a harmonic extension problem on a cellular sheaf. Because a sheaf can carry a different stalk over each agent, the formulation handles agents whose state spaces have different dimensions — the heterogeneity that makes these problems awkward to write down in the usual graph-Laplacian setting. The resulting decentralized controller is built from the sheaf Laplacian and comes with Lyapunov-based stability guarantees.https://gataslab.org/members/itaykadosh/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://gataslab.org/members/itaykadosh/index.htmlProgramMAEDegreePhDLab member since2026 Google Scholar LinkedIn Itay Kadosh is a PhD student in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida. His research interests are robotics, computer vision, and optimization. Before joining UF he studied computer science and applied mathematics at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he worked in the Intelligent Robotics and Vision Lab on autonomous exploration and semantic mapping. That work built a robot that maps an indoor environment once and then keeps only the semantic object layer up to date on later visits, so it can track how objects move and change over time without remapping the geometry.https://gataslab.org/members/samuelcohen/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://gataslab.org/members/samuelcohen/index.htmlStatusUndergraduate researcherLab member since2024 Samuel Cohen is an undergraduate studying math and computer science. My work is implementing distributed optimization algorithms in the AlgebraicOptimization.jl package. This package uses the framework of category theory to exploit naturally occurring compositional structures in various optimization problems.https://gataslab.org/members/cuffaromatt/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://gataslab.org/members/cuffaromatt/index.htmlRoleResearch Software EngineerStatusCrushing itLab member since2023 Matt Cuffaro is the systems administrator and research programmer for the GATAS lab. I help my colleagues build the AlgebraicJulia ecosystem as well as be a custodian for our IT infrastructure.https://gataslab.org/members/tylerhanks/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://gataslab.org/members/tylerhanks/index.htmlProgramCISEDegreePhDStatusGraduatedLab member since2021 Tyler joined the GATAS Lab in the summer of 2021 as a graduate research assistant and has quickly become one of the group’s most visible contributors to the lab’s work at the intersection of optimization, control theory, and machine learning. His research is driven by a desire to make complex engineering problems easier to specify and solve by exploiting the compositional structures that naturally arise in multi-agent systems, distributed optimization, and deep neural-network architectures. To that end, Tyler applies tools from category theory, abstract algebra, and type theory, which are areas traditionally associated with pure mathematics, to create rigorous, modular frameworks that can be reused across disparate problem domains.https://gataslab.org/members/lukemorris/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://gataslab.org/members/lukemorris/index.htmlProgramCISEDegreePhDStatusGraduatedLab member since2021 Website GitHub Luke Morris is leading development on the CombinatorialSpaces.jl and Decapodes.jl projects, for representing multiphysics models and automatically generating simulations from those representations. I am interested in problems that applied scientists face when they do any computational work. In particular, I mean the problems of developing models faster, and making the models themselves faster and more accurate. I lead a couple of projects on this front: Decapodes.jl and CombinatorialSpaces.jl.https://gataslab.org/members/trevorgross/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://gataslab.org/members/trevorgross/index.htmlStatusUndergraduate researcherLab member since2025 Website GitHub Trevor Gross is an undergraduate junior studying computer science affiliated with the Florida Institute for National Security Talent Pipeline. My research interests lie in developing and implementing new techniques to solve existing problems. I primarily work in the AlgebraicOptimization.jl library to improve the efficiency of distributed systems and make other engineers’ work easier. I am a highly motivated student who aims to contribute to research and industries worldwide.https://gataslab.org/members/wilmerleal/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://gataslab.org/members/wilmerleal/index.htmlRolePostdoctoral FellowDegreePhDStatusWritingLab member since2022 LinkedIn Wilmer Leal is a postdoctoral researcher at the Computer Science Department at the University of Florida, USA. I am fascinated by the interplay between chemistry and mathematics, leveraging mathematical tools to solve chemical questions and using chemical intuition to inspire mathematical insights. My current research revolves around developing categorical models for various flavours of compositionality in chemistry. As a chemist, I am naturally inclined to reason and navigate through reaction networks, making hypernetworks a particularly exciting area of study for me.https://gataslab.org/members/benbumpus/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://gataslab.org/members/benbumpus/index.htmlRoleResearch Assistant ProfessorDegreePhDStatusWritingLab member since2022 Website Benjamin Merlin Bumpus was a faculty research scientist and led the algorithms subproject within the GATAS Lab. In 2023 he accepted a professorship at the Institute of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science (IME) at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil, where he now heads the CombTheta research group and the CUÍCA (Categorical Understanding in Computation and Algorithms) lab. His move to USP has expanded his collaborative network across South America and Europe, resulting in joint projects on categorical methods in computational complexity and graph theory. Recent highlights including the Brazilian Category Theory Conference and our paper on temporal data with sheaves being published.https://gataslab.org/members/patrickstokes/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://gataslab.org/members/patrickstokes/index.htmlProgramCISEDegreePhDStatusQualifyingLab member since2021 Patrick Stokes was a faculty research scientist in the GATAS lab. My background is in signal processing, statistical modeling, and system identification in computational neuroscience. My research interest is applying category theory to develop structures and algorithms for robust inference and identification of complex, high-dimensional, multi-scale, and stochastic systems.https://gataslab.org/members/taylorfrederick/index.htmlMon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000https://gataslab.org/members/taylorfrederick/index.htmlTaylor Frederick is a research scientist who likes math.