Christina G. Taylor
Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering
Boise State University, Boise, ID
Applied Mathematics ● Scientific Computing ● Engineering
cgtaylor@boisestate.edu
Research Interests
My research interests are in the intersection of mathematics, computer science/scientific computing, and engineering. I develop numerical methods and code libraries for enabling and improving the efficiency and robustness of simulating complex phenomena on real-world geometries and data sets. My research interests are split broadly into two categories: cut mesh numerical methods for PDEs and data-driven modeling algorithms.
My primary research focus is in cut mesh methods for hyperbolic PDEs, particularly using cut meshes to capture the moving wet-dry boundary for the simulation of ocean-based flooding (e.g., storm surge and tsunamis) and ocean dynamics. My work in this area is a continuation of my past research in cut DG methods and postdoctoral research at the Oden Institute as a member of Clint Dawson's Computational Hydraulics group.
My other research includes data-driven function approximation using radial basis functions and graphs. The algorithms underlying these projects were developed from the SFA/SFAX (Sequential Function Approxiation) algorithm of Dr. Andrew Meade, a research engineer at NASA Ames and professor emeritus of Rice University. In this work we seek to use data to train radial basis function networks and other structures as surrogate models for complex systems for which physics-based modeling is ill-suited. Our current applications of interest are weather prediction and aircraft dynamics.
My Background
My passion for interdisciplinary research comes from my background as a mechanical engineer "raised" by computer scientists/software engineers and mathematicians. I hold a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from South Dakota School of Mines and M.A. and Ph.D. in Computational and Applied Mathematics from Rice University. At Boise State, I lead the new Computational Fluid Dynamics and Modeling group and advise students in the Mechanical Engineering master's program and the interdisciplinary Computing Ph.D. program (CMSE and Data Science tracks).
For full references see my Google scholar page at this link: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8CsbNbUAAAAJ&hl=en
Submitted: "Bessel Functions and Analysis of Circular Waveguides"J. Mora-Paz, L. Demkowicz, C.G. Taylor, J. Grosek, S. Henneking.
ArXiv Preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.04348
"An entropy stable high-order discontinuous Galerkin methods on cut meshes." C.G. Taylor, J. Chan. Journal of Comp. Physics, 2026.
ArXiv Preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.13002
"An energy stable high-order cut cell discontinous Galerkin method with state redistribution for wave propagation." C.G. Taylor, J. Chan, L.C. Wilcox. Journal of Comp. Physics.
ArXiv Preprint: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.06630
"Inducing flow instabilities in aneurysm geometris via the Reynolds-Orr method." A. Contri, C.G. Taylor, J. Tso, I. Gjerde. Simula SpringerBriefs on Computational Physiology: Simula Summer School 2022 - Student Reports (Chapter 6).
"Efficient computation of Jacobian matrices for summation-by-parts schemes." J. Chan, C.G. Taylor. Journal of Comp. Physics, 2021.
ArXiv Preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.07504
PhD Thesis: "Title: Energy and Entropy Stable High-Order Discontinuous Galerkin Methods on Cut Meshes." Rice University.
Advisor: Dr. Jesse Chan
Link: https://repository.rice.edu/items/7b321053-aa57-4283-9d6d-58180b25396e
Masters Thesis: "Efficient computation of Jacobian matrices for entropy stable summation by parts schemes." Rice University.
Advisor: Dr. Jesse Chan
Link: https://repository.rice.edu/items/303657a9-d791-4159-92f4-9e3ce015e763
Peter O'Donnell Jr. Postdoctoral Fellow (Fall 2024)
University of Texas' Oden Institute for Computational Science and Engineering under Dr. Clint Dawson.
NSF Graduate Research Fellow in Computational Mathematics (2021)
Department of Computational Applied Mathematics and Operations Research, Rice University.
Recommended for award to NSF-DMS: "High-order cut discontinuous Galerkin methods for wetting and drying in multi-layer shallow water model". C.G. Taylor, M. Kopera. For more info see: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award?AWD_ID=2608575
2024: Numerical PDEs and Their Applications
Institut Mittag-Leffler, Djorsholm, Sweden.
2024: Rising Stars in Computational and Data Science
University of Texas' Oden Institute, Sandia, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories.
2023: Instructor of Record, High Performance Computing (CMOR 421/521).
Department of Computational Applied Mathematics and Operations Research, Rice University, Spring 2023.
2022: Simula Summer School in Computational Physiology
Simula Research Laboratores (Oslo, Norway), University of Califronia - San Diego.
2021: Argonne National Lab's Training Program in Extreme Scale Computing.
2021 and 2020: Numerical Algorithms Group Graduate Intern
BP's Center for High Performance Computing, Houston, TX.
2018: University of Florida's Center for Compressible Multiphase Turbulence Summer Intern. Gainesville, FL.
2017 and 2016: Google Engineering Practicuum Intern. Mountain View, CA.