People

Gourab Ghoshal

Assistant Professor of Physics, Mathematics and Computer Science
Office: Bausch & Lomb Hall 464
Phone: (585) 276-7748
Email: gghoshal at pas.rochester.edu

Gourab Ghoshal is Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy with joint appointments at the departments of Computer Science and Mathematics. Prior to joining Rochester, he was at Harvard University at the department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and a member of Harvard’s multidisciplinary Origins of Life initiative.

Hailing from New Delhi, India, Professor Ghoshal got his bachelor’s and master’s degree at the University of London, UK (BS and MSc in theoretical Physics, 2004). He did his doctoral-thesis work at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (PhD in Physics, 2009) during which he attended the prestigious Complex Systems summer school at the Santa Fe Institute, NM and the Theoretical Physics school at Les Houches near Chamonix in France. Following his PhD, he was a postdoctoral scientist jointly at Northeastern University and Harvard Medical School as well as a visiting scientist at the Media Lab, MIT. Professor Ghoshal is trained as a Statistical Physicist and works in the field of Complex Systems. His research interests are in the theory and applications of Complex Networks as well as Non-equilibrium Statistical Physics, Computational Social Science, Econophysics, Dynamical Systems and the Origins of Life.

Hugo S. Barbosa

Office: Bausch & Lomb Hall 468
Phone: (585) 276-3128
Email: hbarbosa at pas.rochester.edu

Hugo has a bachelor’s and master’s  degrees in Computer Engineering at the Polytechnic School of Pernambuco, Brazil. He got his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Florida Institute of Technology in 2016. His research interests are mainly centered around understanding the fundamental mechanisms underlying complex human dynamics such as human mobility and online behaviors.

Apart from his research activities, he has a strong interest in Philosophy, Politics and cinema. His worldview has been shaped by a convolution of Albert Camus, Rollo May and Karl Marx with orthogonal influences of Pedro Almodóvar, Gaspar Noé and Lars von Trier.

Mike Verostek

Office: Bausch & Lomb Hall 468
Email: mveroste at ur.rochester.edu

Mike received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hamilton College in 2016, graduating with a concentration in Physics and minors in Mathematics and Government. His undergraduate research focused on studying the behavior of scalar fields in extra dimensional models of spacetime. Mike is interested in a wide variety of academic disciplines, and frequently reads nonfiction books and political science blogs. In his spare time, Mike is an avid photographer; he also spends most mornings in his office doing the New York Times crossword puzzle.

Surendra A. Hazarie

Office: Bausch & Lomb Hall 474
Email: shazarie at pas.rochester.edu

Surendra is a second year graduate student working towards a PhD in physics. He completed his undergraduate studies at Rochester, earning a B.S. in physics with a minor in mathematics. He has done research in astronomy, surface / condensed matter physics, as well as quantum optics. In his spare time, he enjoys video games and board games.

Sayat Mimar

Office: Bausch & Lomb Hall 373
Email: smimar at ur.rochester.edu

Sayat received his Bachelor’s degree in Physics and Mathematics from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey. He entered University of Rochester Physics Ph.D. program in 2016. During his undergraduate studies, he attended DESY Summer School Program in Hamburg also made a short scientific visit to Institut Non Linéaire de Nice in France where he had research experience in condensed matter physics also in optics.
Among his hobbies are music, reading about history and philosophy. He also enjoys playing table tennis.

Kristen Bush

Email: kristen_bush at urmc.rochester.edu

Kristen has a Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science for Health Professions from the University of Houston and a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from Texas A&M University. She is currently a Doctoral Candidate at the University of Rochester Medical Center in the Translational Biomedical Science PhD Program. Her primary advisors are Martin Zand, MD, PhD of the Clinical and Translational Science Institute and Gourab Ghoshal, PhD of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Kristen’s dissertation research uses network science to model and predict the occurrence of nosocomial Clostridium difficile infection at Strong Memorial Hospital.

Brian Dickinson

Email: bdicken3 at cs.rochester.edu

Brian is a third year PhD student from the Computer Science department. As an undergrad he studied Computer Science and Business Administration at Houghton College. His research focuses on data science analysis and applications for social issues.

Gul Seda Unal

Data Science Fellow at Insight Data Science
Email: gulsedaunal at gmail.com

Alec Kirkley

Graduate Student at the University of Michigan
Email: akirkley at umich.edu