Eikmeier, Rodriguez Present Harris Faculty Fellowship Research

Published:
November 20, 2023

Anika Jane Beamer ’22

Nicole Eikmeier, assistant professor of computer science and the Luebke-Sproehnle Endowed Junior Faculty, and Leo Rodriguez, assistant professor of physics, recently shared the exciting research they pursued during a yearlong leave funded by the Harris Faculty Fellowship.

The Harris Faculty Fellowship is an annual competitive fellowship for early career faculty members at Grinnell College to recognize high-quality, innovative research projects and to support the advancement of scholars and scholarship at the College. The endowment for the fellowship comes from a gift from the late Jack (’39) and Lucile Hanson (’40) Harris and provides awardees with a yearlong research leave and additional funds to apply towards research and travel.

The presentation at Burling Library provided a forum for Eikmeier and Rodriguez, the 2022 Harris Faculty Fellows, to showcase to colleagues and students the work that they’d accomplished through the fellowship.

“Products and Progress in Modeling Hypergraphs” — Nicole Eikmeier

Eikmeier presented the research she’s conducted with hypergraphs, a field of study at the intersection of computer science and mathematics. Hypergraphs are a higher-order extension of graphs widely used to understand and model complex interactions. These graphs can be applied to study phenomena from the spread of a disease within a population to changing public opinion as viewed on social media.

During her leave, Eikmeier developed an algorithm for the recovery of clusters, or data groups, in non-uniform hypergraphs. She also spent time comparing hypergraph models to a related modeling tool: simplicial complexes. In creating and testing algorithms on these models of generated data, she is developing algorithms that can be applied to real-world networks.

Eikmeier’s research this past year has resulted in three academic papers, including one co-authored by Grinnell research students and presented at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Big Data Conference in Osaka, Japan.

“Quantum Confinement and its Dilatonic Geometrodynamics” — Leo Rodriguez

Following Eikmeier, Rodriguez shared his research exploring the possibilities of quantum electronics at a very small scale. With support from the Harris Fellowship, he’s spent the last year working with research students at Grinnell and other institutions to work out the details of the “da Costa paradigm” — that is, figuring out how the curvature of a surface constrains the flow of an electrical current that is run across it.

This research has applications in semiconductor development, and Rodriguez is seeking to optimize the shape of such semiconductors. He has begun to explore the physics of quantum electronics on various 3D surfaces. Ultimately, he hopes to determine the semiconductor shape that would minimally affect an electrical current run across its surface.

The yearlong leave also allowed Rodriguez to submit several papers co-authored by undergraduate and graduate students and to give colloquium lectures at WPI, Clark University and University of Iowa. He will continue his quantum electronics research with MAP students and with Assistant Professor of Physics Shanshan Rodriguez.

The College congratulates Eikmeier and Rodriguez on their diligent research and exciting findings. The 2023 recipients of the Harris Faculty Fellowships are Dixuan Yujing Chen, assistant professor of religious studies, and Fernanda Eliott, assistant professor of computer science. Grinnell is proud to support and cultivate the innovative work of early-career faculty such as these.

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