Mathematician Lorena Bociu Receives NSF CAREER Award

Lorena Bociu, an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics at NC State, has received a Faculty Early Career Development Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The award, also known as the NSF CAREER award, is one of the highest awards the foundation bestows upon young faculty in the sciences.

The five-year award will support Bociu’s research project entitled “Control and Sensitivity Analysis for Fluid-Elasticity Interactions and Fluid-Solid Mixtures.” The project aims to develop a theoretical framework for sensitivity analysis and optimal control of biological and physical problems that involve either the interaction of a fluid with an elastic body or the flow of a fluid through a deformable, porous medium.

Bociu will focus in particular on biomechanics and hemodynamics in the lamina cribrosa, a structure in the eye, to better understand the cause and progression of glaucoma and to find new ways to prevent or treat the disease. Her findings will also have implications for other biological fluid-solid mixtures, such as cartilage, bones and engineered tissues.

Bociu received her B.A. in mathematics from Lawrence University in 2002 and her M.S. and Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Virginia in 2004 and 2008, respectively.