Jeff Moehlis Home Page

Check out my music site Music Illuminati

Here is a recent talk I gave called Brain Control - It's Not Just for Mad Scientists

This covers my research inspired by Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, and cardiac arrhythmias.

And here's an article about the same material, called Better Living through Phase and Isostable Reduction.

Jeff Moehlis
Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Engineering II Building, Room 2341
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
805-893-7513 (office)
805-893-8651 (FAX)
E-mail: moehlis@engineering.ucsb.edu

with Kaia and Teagan

Many of you are probably here for Teagan's website or Kaia's website.

In my "spare time" I write concert reviews for noozhawk.com. A list of my reviews, plus interviews, etc, is available here.

Here's a webpage I created on The Mathematics of the Movie "21". This includes discussions of The Fibonacci Series, The Monty Hall Problem, and the Newton-Raphson Method. I don't say much about "card counting" for Blackjack because this is thoroughly covered elsewhere on the web.

Professional Experience (my CV )

Chair, Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara, Fall 2021-present

Vice Chair, Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara, Fall 2008-Summer 2013, Summer 2017-Summer 2021

Chair, Program in Dynamical Neuroscience at UC Santa Barbara, 2019-2020

Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara, Summer 2011-present

Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara, Summer 2007-Spring 2011

Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering at UC Santa Barbara, Summer 2003-Spring 2007

Affiliated with:

Program Director, SIAM Activity Group on Dynamical Systems, 2008-2009

Editorial Board for Journal of Nonlinear Science, 2017-present

Editorial Board for SIAM Journal on Applied Dynamical Systems, 2020-present.

Editorial Committee for Discrete and Continuous Dynamical Systems - Series S, 2007-2010

Chair of Organizing Committee for Emphasis Semester on Control in Biology and Medicine, Mathematical Biosciences Institute, Ohio State University, Fall 2017.

Visiting Research Associate, Department of Engineering Mathematics at University of Bristol , Fall 2007

Visiting Researcher, Fachbereich Physik der Philipps-Universität Marburg, working with Bruno Eckhardt, Summer 2003

Visiting Research Fellow, Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University. Supervisor: Phil Holmes, Fall 2000-Spring 2003; see Phil Holmes story

Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Fellow and Visitor at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution , Summer 1999, 2000

Graduate Student in Department of Physics at University of California, Berkeley. Supervisor: Edgar Knobloch , Fall 1993-Spring 2000

Research (Publications )

Biological Dynamics

control of neural populations

natural and artificial swarms: schooling fish, flocking birds, etc

territorial behavior

coupled oscillators

Fluid Dynamics

shear flow turbulence

Mechanical Systems

theoretical analysis of individual and coupled microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)

vibrational energy harvesting

Networks

information propagation through social networks

collective decision making

Dynamical Systems

bifurcation theory, especially for systems with symmetry and effect of forced symmetry breaking

canards

Past and present support from the following agencies is gratefully acknowledged:

Research Group:

Current Graduate Students	Former Postdoc
Philip Wong Research topic: Olfaction for fruit fly larvae, Co-advised by Matthieu Louis, MCDB at UCSB	Gabor Orosz , 2008-2010 Research topics: Traffic dynamics, coupled oscillators Faculty in Department of Mechanical Engineering at University of Michigan, started Fall 2010
	Former Graduate Students
Tim Matchen Research topic: Controlling populations of neurons	Mike Schaus, MS 2005 Research topic: Response dynamics of neurons (thesis) Specialized Bicycle Components	Joey Durham, MS 2007 Research topic: Controlling canards (thesis) Amazon Robotics
	Barry DeMartini, PhD 2008 (co-advised with Kimberly Turner) Research topic: Dynamics of MEMS devices (dissertation) Keysight Technologies	Allison Kolpas, PhD 2008 Research topic: Collective motion (dissertation) Faculty in Department of Mathematics at West Chester University
	Lina Kim, MS 2005, PhD 2009 Research topic: Shear flow turbulence (thesis, dissertation), Director, Research Mentorship Program, UCSB	Per Danzl, PhD 2010 Research topic: Controlling neurons (dissertation). Received Best PhD Thesis Award, UCSB Dept Mech Eng Eaton Corporation

	Margot Kimura, MS 2007, PhD 2011 Research topic: Collective motion and decision making (thesis, dissertation) Sandia National Laboratory	Ali Nabi, PhD 2012 Research topic: Controlling neurons (dissertation) GenapSys
	Brian Paden, MS 2013 Research topic: Controlling heteroclinic cycles (thesis) Samsung Strategy and Innovation Center	Michael Busch, PhD 2014 Research topic: Social networks (dissertation) Apple, Inc
	Dan Wilson, PhD 2016 Research topic: Controlling populations of neurons, cardiac arrhythmias (dissertation) Faculty in Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Tennessee - Knoxville	Louis Van Blarigan, PhD 2016 Research topic: Vibrational energy harvesting (dissertation) Apeel
	Matthew Kim, BS/MS 2016 Research topic: Neural modeling	Zachary Guilford, BS/MS 2018 Research topic: Information propagation through networks
	Carmelo Gonzales, MS 2019 Research topic: Transient response of nonlinear oscillators	Matthew Ou, BS/MS 2019 Research topic: Neural control through reinforcement learning
	Bharat Monga, PhD 2020 Research topic: Controlling populations of neurons (dissertation) Video of dissertation defense
	Former Undergraduate Researchers
	Jess Theilmann Research topic: Response dynamics of neurons	Bob Hansen Research topic: Response dynamics of neurons
	Ronny Votel Research topic: Territorial behavior	Tomasz Jagoda Research topic: Territorial behavior
	Suzanne Iwanicki Research topic: Territorial behavior	Ashley Zavagno Research topic: Territorial behavior
	Keith Allen Research topic: Vibrational energy harvesting	Lily Li Research topic: Vibrational energy harvesting
	Talia Barth Research topic: Vibrational energy harvesting	Vishaal Varahamurthy Research topic: Dynamical systems software
	Aviv Elbag Research topic: Models for fish schooling

Teaching

Engr 3, Introduction to Programming, Summer 2019, also taught Fall 2018, Summer 2018, Summer 2017, Fall 2016, Summer 2016, Fall 2015, Summer 2015, Fall 2014, Fall 2013, Fall 2012, Summer 2012, Fall 2011, Spring 2011, Spring 2010

ME16, Dynamics, Summer 2019

ME17, Mathematics of Engineering, Spring 2008, also taught Spring 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004

ME163, Vibrations, Summer 2019

ME169, Nonlinear Phenomena, Spring 2018, also taught Spring 2015

ME225DS, Dynamical Systems with Symmetry, Spring 2016, also taught Winter 2008

ME215B, Applied Dynamical Systems II, Winter 2016, also taught Winter 2014, Winter 2015, Spring 2013, Spring 2012, Winter 2009, 2007, 2006, 2005

ME215A, Applied Dynamical Systems I, Fall Quarter 2009, also taught Fall 2008, 2006, 2005, 2004

ME225BC, Special Topics: Introduction to Low Dimensional Modeling, UCSB, Winter Quarter 2004

APC/EEB/MOL 514, Biological Dynamics, Princeton University, Fall 2002

APC591, Special Topics in Biological Dynamics, Princeton University Fall 2001

Erdös and Bacon numbers

My Erdös number is 4: I've written a joint paper with Edgar Knobloch, who has written a joint paper with Martin Golubitsky, who has written a joint paper with Bruce Rothschild, who wrote a joint paper with Paul Erdös. There may be other paths also! For more information, see the Erdös Number Project Home Page .

My Kevin Bacon number is also 4, thanks to two small parts I played in a movie called Post Concussion directed by Danny Yoon. If you get a chance, go see it!!! Or, order from Amazon.com .

I was in Post Concussion (1999) with Daniel Yoon, who is in Low Budget Ethnic Movie (2015) with Jennifer Chang, who was in Death and Return of Superman (2011) with Elijah Wood, who was in Beyond All Boundaries (2009) with Kevin Bacon.

Another link: I was in Post Concussion (1999) with Danny Yoon, who is in Low Budget Ethnic Movie (2015) with Kenny Leu, who was in Awesome Asian Bad Guys (2014) with Al Leong, who was in She's Having a Baby (1988) with Kevin Bacon.

There are other paths also! For more information, see The Oracle of Bacon. Note that you won't be able to find me in the database - sadly, I'm uncredited in the Post Concussion listing on IMDB. I'll have to get my agent on that!