Thomas Coons


University of Michigan Engineering

UQ-SciML Lab

Hello, world!

Welcome to my personal webpage! I am an NSF GRFP fellow and fourth-year PhD student at the University of Michigan pursuing a joint doctorate in Mechanical Engineering and Scientific Computing. 

As a member of the UMich Uncertainty Quantification & Scientific Machine Learning Group, my research focuses on uncertainty quantification for scientific and engineering applications. Specifically, I am interested in accelerating computationally expensive problems such as Bayesian optimal experimental design (OED) via novel multi-fidelity methods. Through this work I have made several developments in topics such as Bayesian inference of covariance matrices, Bayesian optimization with noisy targets, and multi-fidelity stochastic optimization.

In addition, I have considerable experience working with experimentalists in solar panel materials discovery and battery modeling applications, where I have applied Machine Learning and OED methods to aid the experimentalists in characterizing existing data and designing new experiments.

I take great joy in learning across disciplines and solving difficult engineering problems via pragmatic decision making. Please do not hesitate to reach out for questions and collaborations!

Personal Interests

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Powerlifting

Outside of school and research, I spend most of my free time training for powerlifting competitions. As part of the University of Michigan Powerlifting team, I represented UMich in the 75kg class at Collegiate Nationals in Lombard, Illinois in 2022. In addition, I coach a handful of athletes and enjoy learning about the science of drug-free strength and fitness in general. My competition bests are a 232.5kg (513lb) squat, 145kg (319lb) bench press, and a 280kg (617lb) deadlift.

Ornithology

Thanks to my friend Henry Stevens (Ph.D. student at Georgetown), birdwatching has become a fun hobby for me. In addition to being a great excuse to for a weekend trip to the outdoors, I have a couple hundred species of birds on my life list! Shown are a pair of Osprey found in Sanibel, Florida.