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Nicholas A. Battista
nickabattista@gmail.com
5509 Sunlight Drive, Apt 208, Durham, NC 27707
Cell: (716) 517-6561
EDUCATION
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ph.D. Applied Mathematics, expected May 2016
Stony Brook University,
Ph.D. Applied Mathematics, transferred to UNC in summer 2011
Rochester Institute of Technology,
M.S. Applied and Computational Mathematics, May 2010, GPA 4.00
B.S. Applied Mathematics, May 2010, GPA 3.91
B.S. Physics, Nov. 2009, GPA 3.91
SELECTED RESEARCH PROJECTS
Hemodynamics in Heart Morphogenesis:
Jan. 2012 – Present
 Modeled embryonic blood flow throughout various phases of cardiogenesis
 Studied valveless pumping mechanisms in tubular hearts at various biological scales
 Investigated geometrical effects on intracardial hemodynamics, i.e., trabeculation and/or valvular abnormalities
 Explored the role of hematocrit on embryonic hemodynamics at various phases of heart development
 Implemented the immersed boundary method with adaptive mesh refinement (IBAMR)
to numerically investigate dynamics for various parameter ranges
 Principal Investigator: Dr. Laura Miller
Auto-regulation of lung airway surface layer volume
 Modeled effects of pH and stress on volume regulation in a lung’s airway surface layer
 Wrote dynamic code to model various ion channels playing a role in lung biology
 Principal Investigator: Dr. Gregory Forest
May 2012 – Present
Convective Layer Formation
Aug. 2011 – May 2013
 Studied layer (convective cell) formation within a fluid starting with a linear salinity gradient.
 Predicted layer height as function of the initial parameters
 Theoretically studied stability values for the onset of convection
 Principal Investigators: Dr. Richard McLaughlin, Dr. Roberto Camassa
Spectral Methods in Solving for Black Hole Puncture Data
Aug. 2007 – Aug. 2010
 Calculated initial puncture data corresponding to single and binary black hole solutions
 Investigated various mappings to remove singularities from spatial domains
 Utilized pseudo-spectral methods to solve initial puncture data partial differential equation
 Principal Investigators: Dr. Anthony Harkin, Dr. David Ross, Dr. Joshua Faber
Time Evolution of Primordial Non-Singular Black Holes
Apr. 2008 – Mar. 2009
 Modeled the time evolution of the Mbonye-Kazanas non-singular black hole
 Studied time evolutions under the Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe framework
 Discovered power law relations correlating initial black hole mass and black hole remnant formation time
 Published as: Time evolution of a non-singular black hole, Manasse R. Mbonye, Nicholas Batista and Benjamin
Farr, Int. J. Mod. Phys. D 20 1-19(2011).
 Advisor: Dr. Manasse Mbonye
SELECTED TECHNICAL PRESENTATIONS
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TagMAC Conference (Raleigh, NC)
Mar. 21, 2015
“Hematocrit and Trabeculation: It takes two to tango…or something like that”
School of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (UNC) Seminar
Mar. 18, 2015
“Little heart, big (mathematical) richness: Immersed boundary, finite elements, and trabeculation, oh my!”
Integrative Vascular Bio. / McCallister Heart Institute Research Conference (Chapel Hill, NC) Mar. 10, 2015
“Bits and Bumps: Effects of hematocrit and trabeculation in 96hpf zebrafish hearts”
UNC-ARC (Chapel Hill, NC)
Mar. 4, 2015
“Hemodynamics in Heart Morphogenesis”
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Integrative Muscular Physiology Seminar (Chapel Hill, NC)
Feb. 9, 2015
“Fishies, windmills, and farms – oh my!”
SICB: Annual (West Palm Beach, FL)
Jan. 4, 2015
“Bumps and Ridges: Trabeculation in Heart Morphogenesis”
APS Division of Fluid Dynamics (San Francisco, CA)
Nov. 23, 2014
“Bumps and Ridges: Trabeculation Effects in Embryonic Heart Development”
Graduate Mathematics Association Meeting (Chapel Hill, NC)
Oct. 6, 2014
“ ‘No Bake’ Solutions to Elliptic PDEs / Fish Orchestrated Windmill Farms”
SIAM: Life Sciences Annual Meeting (Charlotte, NC)
Aug. 3, 2014
“Flow through a Two-Chambered Zebrafish Heart with Trabeculae”
Japan SMB/SMB Annual Meeting (Osaka, Japan)
Aug. 1, 2014
“Fluid Dynamics in Heart Development: Effects of Trabeculae in 84 hpf Zebrafish Hearts”
School of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (UNC) Seminar
May 5, 2014
“Tools of our trade (the immersed boundary method) and models in heart development”
Integrative Muscular Physiology Seminar (Chapel Hill, NC)
Apr. 7, 2014
“Pulsatile flow through trabeculae in developing zebrafish hearts”
UNC-CH Research Day (Chapel Hill, NC)
Mar. 4, 2014
“Fluid Dynamics in Heart Development: Effects of Trabeculation”
APS Division of Fluid Dynamics Annual Meeting (Pittsburgh, PA)
Nov. 24, 2013
“Pulsatile Flow Through Idealized Trabeculae”
Integrative Muscular Physiology Seminar (Chapel Hill, NC)
Nov. 3, 2013
“Optimized Bar Path in Weightlifting: Modeling the Snatch”
Integrative Vascular Biology Seminar (Chapel Hill, NC)
Oct. 17, 2013
“ ‘Math, math, goose’ ‘Biology is the new physics’‘A taste of math biology & the immersed boundary method’ ”
Biology Lunch Bunch Seminar (Chapel Hill, NC)
Aug. 30, 2013
“Computational tools for biomechanics with examples shown in movies”
Master of Science in Applied and Computational Mathematics Thesis Defense
May 10, 2010
“Spectrally Accurate Initial Data in Numerical Relativity: Binary Black Holes”
AMS Fall Eastern Section Meeting (State College, PA)
Oct. 25, 2009
“Monotonic and Periodic Properties of a Non-Autonomous Rational Difference Equation”
R.I.T. Research Presentations in Mathematical Biology
May 15, 2009
“Heroin Epidemic Modeling”
MAA Seaway Meeting (Rochester, NY)
Apr. 4, 2009
“Spectrally Accurate Initial Data for Binary Black Holes: Single Punctures”
Joint Mathematics Meeting (Washington, DC)
Jan. 5, 2009
“Spectrally Accurate Initial Data in Numerical Relativity”
Syracuse Physics Research Symposium (Syracuse, NY)
Nov. 22, 2008
“Time Evolutions of Primordial Non-Singular Black Holes”
SELECTED POSTER PRESENTATIONS
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Research Computing Symposium (Chapel Hill, NC)
“A collection of fluid-structure interactions in biology: experiments and simulations”
Integrative Vascular Biology / McCallister Heart Institute Research Symposium
“Fluid Dynamics in Heart Development: Trabeculation Effects”
Winter Workshop on Locomotion at Princeton University (Princeton, NJ)
“Effects of trabeculation in vertebrate heart morphogenesis”
May 13, 2014
Mar. 11, 2014
Jan. 30, 2014
SKILLS
Technical: MatLab, Java, C, C++, Fortran, DataTank, Mathematica, Minitab, SAS, LaTeX, Excel (VBA), HTML
Professional: Leadership, mentorship, teamwork, communication, and technical report writing and editing
WORK EXPERIENCE
Teaching in the Department of Mathematics at UNC at Chapel Hill
Jan. 2012 – Present
 Taught Math 130: Pre-Calculus (Sp.12) and Math 119: Math Modeling (Sp.13)
 Designed/lectured/lead the Scientific Computing Ph.D. Comprehensive Review (Su.13, Fa.13, Su.14)
 Designed/lead a 10 hr. module course in scientific computing/introduction to computer programming (Su. 14)
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Full course responsibility
Held office hours both online and in person to benefit all students in the course
Teaching Assistant in the Department of Mathematics at UNC at Chapel Hill
Jan. 2013 – Present
 Assisted Math 669: Scientific Computing II (Sp.13), Math 383: Ordinary Differential Equations (Sp.14)
 Responsible for conducting some lectures and graded* homework and quizzes (*not in Math 383)
 Held office hours both online and in person to benefit all students in the course
Teaching in the Department of Applied Mathematics at Stony Brook
Sep. 2010 – May 2011
 Taught lectures and lead recitation classes that expanded on main concepts from the lectures
 Held office hours both online and in person to benefit all students in the course
 Graded homework, quizzes, and exams
Teaching Assistant in the School of Mathematical Sciences at RIT
 Helped co-lead various Calculus workshops with professors
 Held office hours in which students could come ask questions
 Graded homework and workshop projects
Aug. 2008 – May 2009
EDUCATIONAL OUTREACH AND SERVICE
President of Graduate Mathematics Association (GMA)
 Lead GMA meetings and mediated concerns between students and faculty
 Helped plan and organize recruitment weekend for prospective graduate students
 Delegation of responsibilities for volunteer activities, social events, and department outings
Aug. 2014 - Present
Volunteer at NC Science Days at Northside Elementary School
 Ran a booth on fun topics in probability that students could participate in
 Helped setup and clean up the activities at the school
 Motivate students to keep pursuing science and asking questions
April 2014
Volunteer at the 2014 NCSEF Central Regional-3A Science Fair
 Judged science fair projects for 84 elementary and 20 middle school students
 Helped setup and clean up at the venue
 Motivate students to keep pursuing science and chasing scientific questions
Volunteer at the North Carolina Science Expo
 Introduce children to ideas of fluid mechanics
 Presented a time reversal flow experiment illustrating Stoke’s Flow
March 2014
April 2012, 2013, 2014
Invitation to present Alden Central High School's A.P. Calculus Class
June 2008, 2009, 2010
 Gave a presentation entitled "What is this Calculus good for?!?!"
 Introduced the basic framework of mathematical modeling for students to see applications of their basic calculus
knowledge.
 Reinforced such ideas through various interesting models from mathematical biology, black hole physics, population
dynamics, disease transmission, and mechanics.
AWARDS & HONORS
Sigma Xi Travel Grant (2015)
IVB/MHI Conference Presentation Award (2015)
UNC-ARC Presentation Award (2015)
UNC GPSF Travel Grant (2015)
Landahl Travel Grant (2014)
ITS Research Computing Symposium Poster Award (2014)
Science Presentation Award at UNC’s University Research Day (2014)
Graduate Student Mentor Award (2013)
Stony Brook University Distinguished Teaching Assistant (2011)
3 Collegiate World Powerlifting Records (Squat, Deadlift, and Total) in IPA (2010)
Dorothy L. Pieper Merit Award (2010)
5 Collegiate New York State Powerlifting Records (Bench, Squat, Deadlift, Total, Curl) in WNPF (2010)
R.I.T. Outstanding Undergraduate Scholar (2009)
R.I.T. Research Distinction Award in Physics (2009)
R.I.T. Research Distinction Award in Mathematics (2009)
Goldwater Scholar (2008)
R.I.T. Summer Research Grant (2008)
Honorary Sigma Pi Sigma inductee (2008)
John D. Paliourus Mathematics Award (2008)
Honorary Pi Mu Epsilon inductee (2006)
Rensselaer Medal Recipient (2005)
Eagle Scout – Boy Scouts of America (2003)
INTERESTS & HOBBIES
Weight-training (participant in power-lifting and strongman competitions holding numerous state and national records
in WNPL and IPA), Founding member of the Carolina Weightlifting Club and RIT Strongman Club, Member of
SIAM, SMB, AMS, APS, Pi-RIT, and the Society of Physics Students