We are excited to announce the 2022 SIAM Science Policy Fellowship Program recipients. This program engages early career professionals in science policy and advocacy. Fellowship recipients learn about the workings of science policy as it pertains to our discipline by participating in SIAM’s Committee on Science Policy (CSP) meetings and conducting relevant activities to further SIAM’s science policy efforts.
Fellowships will pay for travel to the biannual SIAM CSP meetings. Each spring, the CSP meets with representatives of agencies (such as the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy) that are relevant to our discipline and visits congressional offices to promote the importance of research funding, graduate training, and undergraduate education in applied mathematics and computational science. Interested in joining the SIAM Science Policy Fellowship Program – learn more here and apply this fall!
The 2022 Fellowship recipients are as follows:
Elie "Eli" Alhajjar
United States Military Academy
Dr. Elie Alhajjar is a research scientist at the Army Cyber Institute (ACI), and jointly an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences at the United States Military Academy (USMA) in West Point, NY, where he teaches and mentors cadets from all academic disciplines. His research interests include mathematical modeling, machine learning, and network analysis from a cybersecurity viewpoint. He has presented his research work in international meetings in North America, Europe, and Asia. Before coming to West Point, Dr. Elie Alhajjar had a research appointment at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, MD. He holds a Master of Science and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from George Mason University, as well as Master’s and Bachelor’s Degrees from Notre Dame University. He plans to leverage his connections with the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Department of Homeland Security, and the US Army to raise awareness of main scientific advancements as well as advance policy ideas to fruition.
Mario Bañuelos
California State University, Fresno
Dr. Bañuelos (he/him/el) is an Assistant Professor and Associate Chair of Mathematics at California State University, Fresno. From the small, agricultural town of Delano, California, and a first-generation college student, he earned his B.A. in Mathematics from California State University, Fresno and obtained a Ph.D. in Applied Math from the University of California, Merced under the guidance of Prof. Suzanne Sindi. His research focuses on mathematical biology, optimization, statistical models for genome evolution, and data science. Through research and teaching, he strives to make mathematical spaces more welcoming and community-oriented. He is interested in participating in the SIAM Science Policy Fellowship to become a better advocate, through policy changes, for research funding and the increased recruitment of computational scientists and mathematicians that reflect the diverse United States population.
David Hyde
Vanderbilt University
David Hyde is an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Vanderbilt University, where his research focuses on the intersections of computational physics, computer graphics, learning, and high-performance computing. He was a Regents Scholar at UCSB, earning a B.S. in Mathematics with highest honors at age 19. Hyde then earned a Ph.D. in Computer Science (with Distinction in Teaching) from Stanford, where he was a DoD NDSEG Fellow and a Gerald J. Lieberman Fellow. Most recently, David was a PIC Assistant Adjunct Professor in the Department of Mathematics at UCLA. Hyde's research has been supported by the Army Research Lab, the Department of Energy, and BHP Billiton. He is eager to study budget and policy issues and to learn how to effectively communicate and collaborate with the federal officials and congressional staffers who shape such policies.
Mayank Kejriwal
University of Southern California
Mayank Kejriwal holds joint appointments as a research assistant professor and research team lead at the University of Southern California. His research is in emerging technologies, including AI, complex systems and knowledge graphs, and their applications to social good. He regularly collaborates with government and industry, with project areas spanning e-commerce, machine common sense, network science, and crisis response. His research, published in top AI and network science conferences and journals, has been featured in Popular Science, CNN Indonesia, Big Think, Salon, The Conversation, and the World Economic Forum. His latest book, published by MIT Press in March 2021 is titled Knowledge Graphs: Fundamentals, Techniques and Applications. He would like to contribute his part to ensure that future young generations continue to aspire to a scientific career. Without advocating strongly for continued federal funding, new scientific programs and initiatives, and support from both the executive and legislative branches of government, we risk eroding the support for our community, institutions and (both current and future) students.
L. Minah Yang
Courant Institute, New York University
During L. Minah Yang's Ph.D. at the Applied Mathematics program at the University of Colorado Boulder, she researched various computational methods for applications in atmospheric and oceanic sciences. Now, she is working to shift her career towards applications in climate science. Yang's current research is on data-driven approaches to parameterizing gravity waves, which are small-scale atmospheric waves that are important drivers of large-scale motions in the atmosphere. While the link from gravity waves to climate change and its impact on people is indirect, Yang believes that gravity wave research deserves support. She hopes to learn about the policy processes that determine science funding. She has benefited from the large, robust scientific process that would be impossible without U.S. federal support, and would like to contribute to it in return. She believes the SIAM Science Policy Fellowship program is the perfect first step for her in reaching this goal.