Eric Severson is a PhD candidate in Applied Mathematics at UC Davis, working with professor David Doty. His research is at the intersection of distributed computing and molecular computing, focusing on the related models of population protocols and chemical reaction networks. These models describe a population of simple computational agents (ie. molecules) that have random pairwise interactions (ie. chemical reactions) and try to compute properties of the global configuration through these purely local interactions. Proving results in these models uses tools from theory of computation and stochastic processes.
Education
BS in Applied Mathematics, 2016
UC Berkeley
Research
(2021).
ppsim: A software package for efficiently simulating and visualizing population protocols.
In CMSB 2021.
(2021).
Time-optimal self-stabilizing leader election in population protocols.
In PODC 2021.
(2020).
Message complexity of population protocols.
In DISC 2020.
(2019).
Composable computation in discrete chemical reaction networks.
In DIST 2020 (Journal) and PODC 2019 (Conference).
Poster Slides Journal Publication Conference Publication Full Paper on Arxiv
Teaching
Courses taught at Proof School:
- Cryptography: Block 5 2021-22
- Theory of Computation: Block 4 2021-22
- Stochastic Processes: Block 3 2021-22
- Euclidean Geometry 1: Block 2 2021-22
- Discrete Probability: Block 1 2021-22
Courses taught as a full instructor at UC Davis:
- Math 115A (Number Theory): Summer 2020
- Math 145A (Combinatorics): Summer 2019
- Math 21D (Vector Calculus): Fall 2018
- Math 21C (Series and Partial Derivatives): Summer 2017
Courses taught as a teaching assistant at UC Davis:
- ECS 220 (Graduate Theory of Computation): Spring 2020 and Spring 2021
- ECS 289A (Molecular Computation): Winter 2021
- Math 21D (Vector Calculus): Winter 2019
- Math 135B (Stochastic Processes): Spring 2018
- Math 21B (Integral Calculus): Winter 2018
- Math 21A (Differential Calculus): Fall 2017
- Math 135A (Probability): Fall 2017
- Math 108 (Intro to Abstact Math): Winter and Spring 2017
- Math 17C (Calculus for Biology): Fall 2016