Physics (Internal)
Research Interests:
Analytic and Computational Methods for Dynamical Systems Integration
My research group has introduced a series of innovative approaches to analyze physiologic data by adapting concepts from modern statistical physics, nonlinear dynamics, and applied mathematics. We have tailored their methods to extract hidden information embedded in the nonstationary, noisy, and nonlinear physiological signals. These have been successfully applied those methods to individual systems, including cardiac, respiratory, locomotion, and brain, considering sleep-stage transitions and circadian rhythms. Those data-driven approaches enabled us to discover basic laws of physiologic regulation of individual systems and develop adequate models; those results were published in leading journals, including Nature, PNAS and Physical Review Letters. Currently, my group is creating analytic and computational methods to quantitatively explore the way in which dynamical systems integrate as a network to produce distinct states and functions. Our overall research objective is to develop a new interdisciplinary field, Network Physiology, integrating efforts across statistical and computational physics, biomedical engineering, human physiology, and medicine.
Education:
- M.S. in Condensed Matter Physics, Sofia University, Sofia, Bulgaria
- Ph.D. in Cellular Biophysics, Boston University, Boston, MA
Honors/Awards:
- Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society
- Georgi Nadjakov Medal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (2012)
- Pitagor (Pythagoras) Prize, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (2014)
- W. M. Keck Foundation Research Award (2015)