Professor Qiang Du and Colleagues Win MURI Grant

Aug 06 2015 | Photo: Jeffrey Schifman

Qiang Du, the Fu Foundation Professor of Applied Mathematics in the Department of Applied Physics and Applied Mathmatics, is part of a team who recently won a highly competitive Department of Defense (DoD) MURI (Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative) grant to develop mathematical theory and algorithms for data-driven fractional partial differential equations (PDEs) that can be used to model anomalous transport behavior in crowded and turbulent environments.


Professor Qiang Du.

The team is led by Brown University, and includes researchers from Rice University, Michigan State University, and the University of South Carolina, as well as Columbia. The five-year $6 million ARO (Army Research Office) grant was awarded for the DoD’s “MURI Topic 6: Fractional Order Methods for Sharp Interface Flows;” the project is titled “Fractional PDEs for Conservation Laws and Beyond: Theory, Numerics and Applications.” A member of Columbia’s Data Science Institute, Du works on developing mathematical tools and numerical algorithms for applications in physical, biological, materials, data, and information science. His research is supported by multiple federal funding agencies, including another MURI award, a five-year $7.5 million grant funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research for "MURI Center for Material Failure Prediction through Peridynamics.”

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