Faculty News

CHRIS BOYCE
Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering.
PhD, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, 2015; BS, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011

Chris Boyce examines the fundamentals of multiphase flows to spark advances in energy, health, and the environment. He uses magnetic resonance imaging and computational modeling to gain insights into complex systems. Boyce completed postdoctoral research at ETH Zürich and Princeton University. He plans to teach computational fluid dynamics and fluid mechanics.

DONALD FERGUSON
Professor of Practice, Computer Science
PhD, Columbia University, 1989; MS, Columbia University, 1984; BA, Columbia University, 1982

Donald Ferguson is the cofounder and CTO of SparqTV, a streaming content platform using cloud/serverless technology. He held leadership roles at Microsoft, IBM, and Computer Associates (now CA, Inc.) before becoming vice president and CTO for Dell Software Group. In 2013, he received the Egleston Medal from the Columbia Engineering Alumni Association.

MARCO GIOMETTO
Assistant Professor, Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
PhD, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland, 2016; PhD, Braunschweig TU University, Germany, and University of Florence, Italy, 2014; MS, University of Padua, Italy, 2010; BS, University of Padua, 2007

Marco Giometto’s research is in the fields of theoretical and computational fluid mechanics, with a focus on boundary-layer flows and on nonequilibrium effects in turbulence. Current topics of interest include thermally driven wall-bounded flows, canopy flows, and the response of turbulence to rapid straining. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia and at the Center for Turbulence Research, operated by Stanford University and NASA Ames. Giometto will teach fluid mechanics this fall and a course on turbulence next spring.

RONGHUI GU
Assistant Professor, Computer Science
PhD, Yale University, 2016; MS and MPhil, Yale University, 2014; BS, Tsinghua University, China, 2011

Ronghui Gu focuses on programming languages and operating systems, specifically language-based support for safety and security, certified system software, certified programming and compilation, formal methods, and concurrency reasoning. He seeks to build certified concurrent operating systems that can resist cyberattacks. Gu previously worked at Google.

NANDAN NERURKAR
Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering
PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 2010; MS, Washington University in St. Louis, 2005; BS, University of Maryland–College Park, 2003

Nandan Nerurkar investigates how tissues and organs form in the developing embryo through an integration of genetic, molecular, and biophysical cues. Using live in vivo imaging, gene misexpression, and biomechanical approaches in the developing chick embryo, Nerurkar’s work focuses on understanding how forces that shape the embryo are specified by developmental signals, how these forces in turn influence tissue growth and stem cell differentiation, and how birth defects arise when these processes go awry. Ultimately, the goal of his work is to establish the design principles of embryonic tissue formation, and to repurpose them for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering applications.