Kathleen Champion – Spring 2019

Kathleen was the recipient of a Computational Neuroscience Training Grant (compneuro.washington.edu) in her second year of grad school, and for the last three years has been supported by an extremely prestigious NSF GRFP fellowship. She continues to be a leader in her field, and was selected to attend the Rising Stars in Computational & Data Sciences workshop in UT, Austin, a competitive workshop for stellar candidates pursuing academic and research careers. She loves to ski in the winter, has been learning to sail through the Washington Yacht Club at UW, and is a huge fan of Bluebird ice cream!

What degree are you pursuing and in what field? How far into your degree are you

I’m a PhD student in the applied math department. I’m in my fifth year and will be graduating this summer.

How long have you been doing computational research?

I started doing computational research as a freshman undergraduate, so about ten years at this point. Throughout undergrad I did computational research projects in computer science, applied math, and computational biology, and I’ve continued doing computational research throughout my graduate career.

What is the current focus of your research and how do RCC resources play a role?

My research focuses on discovering governing equations (in the form of dynamical systems models) from data. My most recent project used neural networks as part of the model discovery process. I used RCC funding to access AWS machines with GPUs, which helped make the network training efficient. This resource was crucial in enabling me to efficiently test out our methods!

What is your favorite thing about living in Seattle?

I love that nearly everywhere you go you have views of the mountains, water, or city skyline.