Selected Presentations & Appearances
Noise refers to the rapid and unpredictable fluctuations that are present in almost all complex systems. For example, in electronic transport devices, noise arises from the random and highly unpredictable flow of individual electrons as they move through the structures. Historically, noise has been viewed as a nuisance that tends to degrade performance of systems by making them less predictable. However, researchers have recently found surprising ways in which noise may enhance the performance of a complex system. A striking example of such a beneficial effect is the superlattice random number generator in which the noise greatly enhances chaotic electrical current flow. Another important example is provided by climate models that accurately predict weather patterns such as the famous El Niño by treating the forcing of the atmosphere on surface sea temperatures as a set of effective noise terms. In this talk, I will also focus on our recent experimental and theoretical efforts to discover the unexpected behaviors that emerge from the interplay of deterministic and stochastic dynamics in electronic transport systems.
Outreach & Engaged Scholarship
North Carolina
Led an information session with Physics undergraduate students and faculty at Appalachian State University concerning the Duke Physics program in particular, as well as providing general suggestions for applying to Physics graduate programs.
Service to the Profession
Novel Noise-Driven Dynamics in Far-From-Equilibrium Systems
Reviewer for manuscripts submitted to journals including Physical Review E, Physical Review Research, Physical Review Letters, Physical Review Applied, Journal of Applied Physics, Chaos, Soft Matter, and Scientific Reports.
Recently, there has been impressive experimental and theoretical progress concerning the dynamical properties of noise-driven systems that are far-from-equilibrium. These efforts span a broad array of fields including biophysics, condensed and soft matter physics, materials science, climate science, and even the social sciences. This minisymposium will bring together experimentalists and theorists from condensed matter physics and applied mathematics to explore novel dynamical systems methods and experimental techniques that are enhancing the understanding of noise-driven phenomena of current importance and interest. Systems to be treated in this session include biophysical problems such as protein folding and the growth of blood vessels and vascular networks, defect dynamics in low-dimensional crystalline materials, and noise-driven charge transport in electronic systems with novel approaches to applications such as random number generation.