Matt Bierbaum | resume

2016

Postdoc - Cornell University, advisor James P. Sethna

2009 - 2016

Cornell University - Ph.D. Physics, advisor James P. Sethna

2009 - 2012

Cornell University - M.S. Physics, advisor James P. Sethna

2005 - 2009

Northwestern University - B.A. Physics and Integrated Science, advisor Frederic Rasio

Current

Collective motion at heavy metal concerts
- Covered by NPR, Times, Atlantic, PopSci, NBC, NatGeo with 0.7M pageviews
- Described the phase transition between mosh and circle pit with GPU simulation of 1M agents
Zombie disease dynamics
- Featured on WaPo, WSJ, CBS, NBC, CBC, Smithsonian, HuffPo with 1.2M pageviews
- Modelled spread of zombieism across the continental US
- High performance interactive web simulation in JS incorporating full US population
Precision image featuring
- Extracting parameters from microscope images at the information limit (~1 nm)
- Created optimized open-source Python package available on PyPI
Continuum plasticity
- Dynamics of line defects in metals using PDEs simulated in CUDA
- Performed super computer computations with MPI / GPUs over 1M core-hours
OpenKIM pipeline
- Designed and implemented distributed computing environment for interatomic potentials
- Created frontend, backend, and testing framework used by hundreds of material scientists
Colloidal stresses - developing experimental techniques to measure forces in suspensions
Surface energies - using OpenKIM framework to create broken bond fits to surface energies
Phonon spectra - employing symmetries to create small parameter fits for phonon spectra
Smectic A - creation and dynamics of focal conic defects in layered materials

Past

Globular cluster dynamics - formation of intermediate mass black holes in primordial clusters
Hidden paintings - using subsurface scattering to infer paintings below the surface

General

Major

Minor

Published

Deformation of crystals: Connections with statistical physics– Sethna et. al – arXiv:1609.05838
Measuring nonlinear stresses generated by defects in 3D colloidal crystals – Lin, Bierbaum, Schall, Sethna, Cohen – Nature Materials 2016
The weirdest martensite: Smectic liquid crystal microstructure and Weyl-Poincare invariance – Liarte, Bierbaum, Mosna, Kamien, Sethna – PRL 116, 147802 2016
"Irregularization" of Systems of Conservation Laws – Swan, Choi, Papanikolaou, Bierbaum, Chen, Sethna – arXiv:1506.05743
You can run, you can hide: The epidemiology and statistical mechanics of zombies –
Alemi, Bierbaum, Myers, Sethna – Phys Rev E 92, 052801 2015
Visualization, coarsening and flow dynamics of focal conic domains in simulated Smectic-A liquid crystals – Liarte, Bierbaum, Zhang, Leahy, Cohen, Sethna – Phys Rev E 92 6, 062511 2014
Collective motion of humans in mosh and circle pits at heavy metal concerts –
Silverberg, Bierbaum, Sethna, Cohen – PRL 110 (22) 228701 2013
Scaling theory of continuum dislocation dynamics in three dimensions: Self-organized fractal pattern formation – Chen, Choi, Papanikolaou, Bierbaum, Sethna – IJP 46, 94-129 2013
Formation of Massive Black Holes in Dense Star Clusters. II. Initial Mass Function and Primordial Mass Segregation – Goswami, Umbreit, Bierbaum, Rasio – APJ 752 (1), 43 2012

Preparation

Locating Colloidal Spheres at the Information Theoretic Limit – Bierbaum, Leahy, Alemi, Cohen, Sethna
OpenKIM Processing Pipeline: A Virtual Machine Cloud-Based Automatic Materials Property Computation Engine – Bierbaum, Alemi, Karls, Wennblom, Elliott, Tadmor, Sethna
X-ray Analysis of Continuum Dislocation Dynamics – Bierbaum, Kent-Dobias, Choi, Chen, Sethna

Daily

Projects