I am ethnically Chinese, raised in Southern California.

Cheng is my first name and Ly (李) is my last name. Excuse the unconventional spelling. 

People make the common mistake of calling me "Dr. Cheng" or "Professor Cheng".

Work Experience 

• Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, Department of Mathematics and Statistics,  07/2026.

• Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, Department of Mathematics and Statistics,  07/2019 – 06/2026.

• Assistant Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, Department of Statistics/OR,  08/2013 – 06/2019.

• Quantitative Modeler at The PNC Financial Services Group, 10/2011-06/2013.

• Postdoctoral Fellow with Brent Doiron at The University of Pittsburgh, 08/2010-10/2011.

• NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (MSPRF), with Bard Ermentrout at The University of Pittsburgh, 08/2007 – 07/2010.

Education 

• Ph.D. in Mathematics, Courant Institute (NYU), May 2007. Advisor: Daniel Tranchina.

• M.S. in Mathematics, Courant Institute (NYU), September 2004.

• B.S. in Applied Mathematics, UCLA, June 2002.

Memberships: SIAM (Lifetime), OCNS, Society for Mathematical Biology, Virginia Academy of Sciences (Lifetime) 

Service 

• SIAM Life Sciences Activity Group Secretary, 2023-2024.

• Society for Mathematical Biology's Mathematical Neuroscience subgroup Chair: 2019-2023, Advisory Member: 2023-2027.

• Started VCU's SIAM Student Chapter and am currently the faculty advisor (SIAM at VCU).

• Referee for: PLoS Computational Biology, Journal of Neurophysiology, SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems, Journal of Computational Neuroscience, Neural Computation, Journal of Mathematical Biology, Mathematical Biosciences and Engineering, Bulletin of Mathematical Biology, IEEE Access, Discrete and Dynamical Systems B, Journal of Nonlinear Science, Physical Review E, Physical Review Research, Journal of The Royal Society Interface, Frontiers in Physiology, PLoS ONE, Scientific Reports, etc.

• Referee for poster submissions to COSYNE, OCNS, ICMNS 2 A.

• Referee for presentations at the 2014 Virginia Junior Academy of Sciences meeting.

• Organizer for numerous mini-symposiums at SIAM conferences.

• TA for summer school on “Mathematics for Biological Networks” at the University of Victoria (Summer 2010).

Honors and Awards

• NSF eMB grant on Parkinsonian Neural Dynamics, 2027-2030.

• NIH Brain Initiative (Theories, Models and Methods) grant on multi-timescale cortical dynamics, 2024-2027.

• Breakthrough grant from One VCU Research Funds, 2022-2024. 

• NSF CRCNS grant on Retronasal Olfaction, 2019-2022.

• Simons Foundation Collaboration Grant for Mathematicians, 2015-2020.

• NSF Mathematical Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, 2007-2010.

• NDSEG (DoD) Fellowship, Courant Institute, 2003-2006.

• MacCracken Fellowship, Courant Institute, 2002-2007.

• NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (GRFP) Honorable Mention, 2003.

• Phi Beta Kappa, National Honor Society, Eta of California, 2002.

• Summa Cum Laude, Highest Departmental Honors, College Honors, at UCLA, 2002.

• Harbison Scholarship (full), UCLA, 1998-2002.