David J. Gillcrist

David is a PhD Candidate in computational math at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth studying optimal experimental design through the perspective of differential geometry. His work currently makes use of surrogate modeling, extrinsic curvature estimates, directional statistics, and gradient descent algorithms to inform better experimental approaches to estimate or calibrate system parameters.

In general, David has a deep love of mathematics and science as well as a passion to investigate its problems. His primary motivator is his inherent curiosity in these subjects and his vocation to communicate them to a wider audience. Viewing himself as equally a researcher and a teacher, he has always felt that Richard Feynman’s philosophy of teaching resonated deeply with him.

If you’re teaching a class, you can think about the elementary things that you know every well. These things are kind of fun and delightful… If you do think of something new, you’re rather pleased that you have a new way of looking at it. The questions of the students are often the source of new research. They often ask profound questions that I’ve thought about at times… It wouldn’t do me any harm to think about them again and see if I can go any further now. The students may not be able to see the thing I want to answer, or the subtleties I want to think about, but they remind me of a problem by asking questions in the neighborhood of that problem. It’s not so easy to remind yourself of these things. So I find that teaching and the students keep life going, and I would never accept any position in which somebody has invented a happy situation for me where I don’t have to teach. Never.

‘Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!’, Adventures of a Curious Character

Notable/Recent Publications

David J. Gillcrist, Negin Alemazkoor, Yanlai Chen, Mazdak Tootkaboni, “Design of Experiments via Multi-Fidelity Surrogates and Statistical Sensitivity Measures” DOI: 10.1615/JMachLearnModelComput.2024055261. View Preprint

Research Interests

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