Maria-Veronica Ciocanel, Assistant Professor

My research is in mathematical biology, and I am particularly interested in tackling questions about protein transport and organization in cells using mathematical and computational tools. Understanding how proteins move and organize inside cells is a fundamental question in cell and developmental biology, with implications to how cells function in a healthy way and how organisms properly develop.

I use mathematical modeling, analysis, and simulation to address questions about molecular-motor driven transport and protein filament organization. I build and use techniques from dynamical systems and partial differential equations, stochastic processes, and data analysis. I collaborate with experimental researchers on problems related to messenger RNA transport in developing oocytes and neuronal cells, actin-myosin protein interactions, and organization of microtubule filaments in neuronal dendrites. This leads to interesting questions about building stochastic and continuous models for these processes, about parameter estimation and identifiability based on limited experimental data, and about appropriate measures for analyzing complex simulated and experimental datasets.

Up-to-date information about my research can be found here: https://services.math.duke.edu/~ciocanel/.

Contact Info:

Office Location:	120 Science Drive Physics 117, Box 90320, Durham, NC 27708
Email Address:
Web Page:	https://services.math.duke.edu/~ciocanel/

Teaching (Fall 2024):

• BIOLOGY 218.01, BIOLOGICAL CLOCKS Synopsis

  FFSC 4233, TuTh 03:05 PM-04:20 PM

  (also cross-listed as MATH 270.01)

Office Hours:

Fall 2023: Mon 11am-12:30pm, Thurs 2:50-4:20pm.

Education:

Ph.D.	Brown University	2017
M.S.	Brown University	2013
B.S.	Duke University	2012

Keywords:

Computational methods • Data analysis • Developmental biology--Mathematical models • Dynamical systems in biology • Intracellular Transport • Mathematical biology in general • Muser Mentor • Stochastic processes--Mathematical models

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. Nelson, AC; Rolls, MM; Ciocanel, M-V; McKinley, SA, Minimal Mechanisms of Microtubule Length Regulation in Living Cells., Bulletin of mathematical biology, vol. 86 no. 5 (April, 2024), pp. 58 [doi]  [abs]
2. Ciocanel, M-V; Ding, L; Mastromatteo, L; Reichheld, S; Cabral, S; Mowry, K; Sandstede, B, Parameter Identifiability in PDE Models of Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching., Bulletin of mathematical biology, vol. 86 no. 4 (March, 2024), pp. 36 [doi]  [abs]
3. Topaz, CM; Ning, S; Ciocanel, MV; Bushway, S, Federal criminal sentencing: race-based disparate impact and differential treatment in judicial districts, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, vol. 10 no. 1 (December, 2023) [doi]  [abs]
4. Nelson, AC; Rolls, MM; Ciocanel, M-V; McKinley, SA, Minimal Mechanisms of Microtubule Length Regulation in Living Cells (October, 2023)
5. Ciocanel, M-V; Goldrosen, N; Topaz, C, Quantifying Federal Sentence Disparities with Inferred Sentencing Records, SIAM News Blogs (September, 2023)

Recent Grant Support

• Pairing modeling and experiment to understand microtubule behavior in healthy and injured neurons, Pennsylvania State University, 2022/06-2027/04.      
• Mechanosensitivity of Membrane-Actin Cortex Adhesion, National Science Foundation, 2023/08-2026/07.      
• RTG: Training Tomorrow's Workforce in Analysis and Applications, National Science Foundation, 2021/07-2026/06.      
• Inference and mathematical modeling of mRNA transport in neuronal cells, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics , 2025/05-2025/07.