Andrew Ferguson
I lead an interdisciplinary computational and theoretical research group working on materials self-assembly, biomolecular simulation, viral dynamics, and vaccine design. My doctoral training provided me with expertise in molecular simulation, statistical mechanics, and machine learning, in which I developed new nonlinear machine learning approaches to study the conformations and dynamics of proteins, polymers, and confined water. During my post-doctoral fellowship, I acquired knowledge and skills in immunology and viral dynamics, and developed new computational tools for structure-free prediction of antibody binding sites, and the computational design of HIV vaccines using statistical mechanical principles.
Since establishing my independent research program in 2012, I have combined these expertise to establish a dynamic research program in computational materials science and computational virology for which I have attracted over $2.9M in federal research funding, established a strong publication record (60+ papers) in leading journals, and have been recognized with a number of national awards including a 2018 Royal Society of Chemistry Molecular Systems Design and Engineering Emerging Investigator Award, 2017 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Research, 2016 AIChE CoMSEF Young Investigator Award, 2015 ACS Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, 2014 ACS Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator Award, 2013 NSF CAREER Award, and I was named the 2013 Institution of Chemical Engineers North America “Young Chemical Engineer of the Year”. I am engaged and active within my professional organization serving on the AIChE Area 1a Programming Committee and as CoMSEF Liaison Director, and in organizing multiple scientific sessions at our national meetings. In addition to independent theoretical work, my research interests lead naturally to close collaboration with experimentalists and clinicians, teaching me the power of mutually reinforcing theoretical and experimental work and the importance of effective communication, planning, budgeting, teamwork and leadership.