David Murrugarra

Professor

I am a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Kentucky. My research focuses on Mathematical Biology, with an emphasis in Systems Biology and Computational Biology. I earned my PhD in Mathematics from Virginia Tech and subsequently completed a postdoctoral appointment in the School of Mathematics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. I joined the University of Kentucky in 2014.

For more information about my research, teaching, and professional activities, please visit my personal webpage.

Contact Information

murrugarra@uky.edu

771 Patterson Office Tower

Office Hours: MF 3-4 PM and by appointment.

8592574734

Research Interests

Mathematical Biology
Systems Biology
Computational Biology

Affiliations

Mathematics

Personal website

Research

I develop mathematical and computational methods for modeling, analyzing, and controlling biological systems, with a particular emphasis on gene regulatory networks. My research also includes the development of scalable algorithms for the optimal control of large probabilistic systems using techniques from Markov decision processes and reinforcement learning.

Another area of my research focuses on the computational prediction and design of RNA secondary structure using machine learning and topological data analysis. For more information, including a list of publications, please visit my personal webpage.

Research Projects: Current research directions include:

A mathematical theory for the biological concept of modularity Funded by NSF grant.
Personalization and calibration of medical digital twins.
Predicting the directability of RNA secondary structure. Funded by UK's Pilot Grant.

Outreach

I am a co-organizer of the University of Kentucky Mathematical Community and Ethics (MCE) Working Group.

I am a member of the Applied and Computational Mathematics group, and we host a weekly seminar that brings together researchers and students in applied mathematics and applications. Details about the seminar can be found here.