INTRODUCTION

I am a Professor in the Department of Mathematics of Northeastern Illinois University, and a Visiting Faculty at Northwestern University. 

I received my M.S. in Mathematics from University of Bucharest in 1992, and my Ph.D. in Mathematics from State University of New York at Buffalo in 1997. 

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My field of research is Dynamical Systems - with a focus on Topological Methods in Dynamics, Chaos Theory, and Celestial Mechanics.

The origins of Dynamical Systems are closely related to Henri Poincare work on the three-body problem. Poicare pointed out that "it may happen that small differences in the initial conditions produce very great ones in the final phenomena", which can be regarded as one of the first descriptions of chaos. Subsequently, a number of mathematicians discovered unusually complex behavior in simple equations: Gaston Julia and Pierre Fatou in 1918, George Birkhoff in the 1920s, Stephen Smale in late 1950s, and Edward Lorenz in the 1960s.  The prototypical example of a chaotic dynamics is the Smale horseshoe, shown right.

My research is mostly devoted to methods for detection of topological structures similar to the Smale horseshoe, and application of such methods in physical sciences.

Smale's Horseshoe

COURSES

SEMINARS

Raphael, School of Athens, detail of a preliminary drawing, charcoal and white lead

CONTACT

Escher, Drawing Hands, lithograph