Scott A McKinley, Visiting Assistant Professor

Please note: Scott has left the Mathematics department at Duke University; some info here might not be up to date.

Contact Info:

Office Location:	218 Physics
Office Phone:	(919) 660-2848
Email Address:

Office Hours:

Mon, Wed 2-4 pm or by appointment

Education:

PhD	The Ohio State University	2006
BS	Tulane University	1998

Specialties:

Probability
Applied Math

Research Interests: Probability Theory and Applied Stochastic Processes

My primary mathematical interests are probability theory, stochastic processes, dynamical systems and PDEs, as well as their application to the modeling of stochastic phenomena in biology and physics. Remarkable progress in advanced microscopy yields unprecedented access to a path-wise observation of fundamental stochastic processes such as the motion of invasive particulates in viscoelastic fluids; the kinetics of strands of DNA and semi-flexible polymers; and the mechanics of intracellular transport. In each case, stochasticity is unmistakeable and essential. Most important, because we are looking at data from a relatively new field, when one extracts tractable but qualitatively authentic models, the analysis inevitably calls for new mathematics. In my own work, I have dealt with systems involving complex self-interactions, long-term memory effects and important non-equilibrium dynamics.

Areas of Interest:

Continuous time stochastic processes with physical application
Anomalous Diffusion in Passive Microrheology
Geometric Ergodicity of Diffusions in Singular Potentials
Molecular Motors and Intracellular Transport
Qualitative Behavior of nonlinear SDE

Undergraduate Research Supervised

• Alexis Cook (May, 2008 - present)  
• Brian Choi (May, 2008 - present)  

Recent Publications

1. Jonathan C. Mattingly, Scott A. McKinley, Natesh S. Pillai, Geometric ergodicity of a bead-spring system advected by a stochastic Stokes fluid (Submitted, Winter, 2009) [4496]
2. Scott A. McKinley, Lingxing Yao and M. Gregory Forest, Transient Anomalous Diffusion of Tracer Particles in Soft Matter, Journal of Rheology (Nov/Dec 2009)
3. Scott A. McKinley, Lea Popovic and Michael C. Reed, A Spatial Markov Model for Fast Axonal Transport (Submitted, 2009) [0911.2722]
4. Scott A. McKinley, Anomalous Diffusion of Distinguished Particles in Bead-Spring Systems (Submitted, 2009) [0911.4293]

Conferences Organized

• AMS Southeast Section - Special Session on Stochastic Dynamics, Co-organizer, April 04, 2009