Meet the New Sciences Tenured/Tenure-Track Faculty

With each new school year comes new students — and new professors. This year, the College of Sciences has added a group of top-tier sciences faculty from all over the world who are helping us think and do in new and creative ways. Learn more about the college’s newest tenured/tenure-track faculty.

Patrick L. Combettes
Title: Distinguished Professor, Mathematics, and member of the Data-Driven Science faculty cluster
Research Focus: I work in optimization, which is the science of making the best decision with limited resources. I also apply nonlinear analysis tools to problems arising in data science. My research has concrete applications in almost all areas of science and engineering, including weather prediction, airplane design, finance and artificial intelligence.
Why NC State?: The research environment is great!

Tye Lidman
Title: Assistant Professor, Mathematics
Research Focus: I work in topology, which roughly speaking is the study of shape, including understanding and unknotting knots and figuring out what types of surfaces can live in four-dimensional spaces. I am exploring a really interesting frontier between what we can visualize and what we can understand.
Why NC State?: NC State, and the Department of Mathematics in particular, seems to really care about research, teaching and diversity, and the Research Triangle area seems quite exceptional in terms of resources.

Vincent Lindsay
Title: Assistant Professor, Chemistry
Research Focus: My work involves developing efficient and sustainable ways to access precious organic molecules used as key ingredients in the production of pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals and cosmetics. In addition to reducing the environmental impact of these processes, these new approaches often lead to lower production costs and, as a result, are highly attractive to manufacturers.
Why NC State?: The highly collaborative atmosphere, the high concentration of academic institutions and companies relevant to my field of research and the dedication of the students all attracted me here.

Ryan Martin
Title: Associate Professor, Statistics
Research Focus: My primary focus is the foundations of statistics and developing a solid understanding of why we do what we do and why certain solutions work with some problems and not others. We can apply this understanding to develop high-quality solutions to new problems, particularly modern big-data problems for which the intuition behind many classical statistical solutions often fails.
Why NC State?: NC State has one of the biggest and best statistics departments in the country, so working here brings a lot of exciting opportunities to collaborate with top-notch faculty and students, other departments at NC State, and government and industry professionals.

Tien Khai Nguyen
Title: Assistant Professor, Mathematics
Research Focus: I study problems in nonlinear partial differential equations, optimal controls and nonlinear differential games. These areas have broad applications in practical areas like network traffic flow, economics and finance.
Why NC State?: The Department of Mathematics has a very good reputation and strong research groups in control and differential equations.

Caroline Proulx
Title: Assistant Professor, Chemistry
Research Focus: My goal is to discover and accelerate the making of stable peptide mimics that can fold into precise shapes for use in drug development. In addition, I hope to use these peptide mimics to answer fundamental questions about how peptides and proteins fold and function.
Why NC State?: The Research Triangle area is a very stimulating, unique area to be in as a scientist, and I look forward to being a part of it.

Shu Yang
Title: Assistant Professor, Statistics
Research Focus: Many important questions in public health and medicine studies involve evaluating effects of interventions, like changing health policy, approving new drugs or implementing new treatment strategies. The answers to these questions often rely on non-experimental or observational data, so I am developing causal inference methods to effectively translate rich information in such data into meaningful knowledge and accelerate evidence-based decision making.
Why NC State?: The Department of Statistics has a strong reputation built on the faculty and students, as well as a wide range of opportunities. I am impressed by the important research faculty are leading, as well as the friendly and supportive environment.

Ethan Hyland (starting January 2017)
Title: Assistant Professor, Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
Research Focus: I primarily focus on climate change, including the conditions that caused it and the effects it may have had on ecosystems and environments. I also develop new tools and analytical techniques for describing the past using fossil materials.
Why NC State?: I really liked the interdisciplinarity and collegiality of the department, the strong commitment to teaching, the innovative research in the college and the stellar resources and reputation of the university.

Dali Sun (starting January 2017)
Title: Assistant Professor, Physics
Research Focus: I work on spintronics and optoelectronics of organic materials, particularly the efficiency of converting magnetism into electricity and magnetism and electricity into light. My research provides a new way of understanding the physics of organic and newly emerged materials.
Why NC State?: The department is vibrant and very friendly, and it encourages collaborative research with other departments. It is a top organic-based research center located in the perfect research environment — the Research Triangle area.