Maize Curiel received their PhD in 2024 from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa under the supervision of Elizabeth Gross. Their dissertation is titled "Algebraic and Combinatorial Applications in Systems and Evolutionary Biology." Maize joined ICERM in Fall 2024 for the Semester Program Theory, Methods, and Applications of Quantitative Phylogenomics. Their research interests are in applied algebraic geometry and combinatorics.

Dimitrios Diamantidis received his Ph.D. in 2024 from the Mathematics Department at Indiana University under the supervision of Wai Tong (Louis) Fan. In the academic year 2024-2025, he joins ICERM as a Postdoctoral Fellow, participating in the Fall Semester Program Theory, Methods, and Applications of Quantitative Phylogenomics. His research interests lie at the intersection of probability theory, population genetics, and coalescent theory. In particular, he is working on conditional coalescent theory and is interested in its applications to genomic data under various independence structures as theoretically captured by matroids.

Marina Garrote-López received her Ph.D. in 2021 from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya under the supervision of Marta Casanellas and Jesús Fernández Sánchez. Her doctoral thesis is titled “Algebraic and Semi-algebraic Phylogenetic Reconstruction.” She joined ICERM as a semester postdoc in Fall 2024, participating in the Theory, Methods, and Applications of Quantitative Phylogenomics Semester Program. Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher in the Nonlinear Algebra group of Bernd Sturmfels at the Max Planck Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences and at the University of British Columbia working with Elina Robeva. She also spent a short period as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alaska, working with Elizabeth S. Allman and John A. Rhodes. Her research focuses on integrating theoretical and computational algebraic tools to comprehensively analyze the geometric and algebraic structure of statistical models derived from problems in evolutionary biology, and graphical models or machine learning to address questions related to identifiability, parameter estimation, and causal inference.

David Lowry-Duda’s research interests primarily lie in analytic number theory, and in particular on automorphic forms and L-functions. During his PhD, he developed a new approach to study the size and behavior of automorphic forms. He has contributed to data creation for the LMFDB, as well as day-to-day maintenance. David completed his Ph.D. at Brown University in 2017, worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Warwick Mathematics Institute. David has returned to ICERM as a Senior Research Associate to work with Brendan Hassett as part of the Simons Collaboration on Arithmetic Geometry, Number Theory, and ComputationCollaboration on Arithmetic Geometry, Number Theory, and Computation.

Zeyuan He received his BEng from Tsinghua University in 2017 and PhD from the University of Cambridge in 2021. After a year in the metallurgy industry, he pursued postdoctoral research at Kyoto University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Cambridge. In 2024-2025, he will join ICERM as an Institute Postdoc for the program "Geometry of Materials, Packings, and Rigid Frameworks." His research sits in between the mathematical and engineering research on geometrically constrained systems, focusing on the continuous isometric deformation of surfaces and the development of novel engineering mechanisms inspired by such deformation.

Max Hill received his Ph.D. in 2024 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison under the supervision of Sebastien Roch. His dissertation work involved probabilistic analyses of evolution models with applications to phylogenetic inference. After earning his doctorate, he was a postdoc at the University of California Riverside. He joins ICERM as a Semester Postdoc in the Fall 2024 Semester Program Theory, Methods, and Applications of Quantitative Phylogenomics. In Spring 2025, he will be a researcher at the University of Hawaii at Manoa working with Elizabeth Gross. His research interests include phylogenetic network models, maximum likelihood estimation, and understanding the impact of biological phenomena such as recombination, gene duplication, and variable mutation rates on phylogenetic inference.

Joshua Justison graduated from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in 2018 and completed his Ph.D. from Iowa State in 2024 under the supervision of Tracy Heath. His research interests primarily lie in inferring reticulate phylogenetic histories and their use in understanding patterns of diversification. Joshua’s dissertation work primarily focused on modeling gene flow processes and how they affect patterns in macroevolution. As part of this work, he developed tools for phylogenetic network simulation and trait evolution software that can account for reticulate histories. Joshua joined ICERM in the Fall of 2024 as a Semester Postdoctoral Fellow.

Sungsik (Kevin) Kong is a computational evolutionary biologist who focuses on developing methods to address questions in evolutionary biology using techniques and concepts from statistics, mathematics, and computer science. He is particularly interested in developing scalable methods that infer phylogenetic networks to understand the role of reticulate evolution (e.g., hybridization) in shaping today’s biodiversity by utilizing information embedded in genomic data. Sungsik holds a Ph.D. in Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology from Ohio State University, where he was advised by Dr. Laura Kubatko. Following his graduation, he joined the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison as a Research Associate, working with Dr. Claudia Solís-Lemus. He earned his M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Zoology from the University of Toronto.