Meet the researchers and students behind the Solaris Lab.
Prof. Ján Drgoňa
Associate Professor
Differentiable Programming, Scientific Machine Learning
Dr. Liang Wu
Postdoctoral Researcher
Quadratic Programming, Model Predictive Control, and Control of PDE Systems
Dr. Parv Khurana
Postdoctoral Researcher
PDE control, Neural Operator, Linear Solvers
Honghui Zheng
PhD Student (Joined Fall 2025)
Learning to Optimize, Learning to Control, Mixed-Integer Programming
Pietro Zanotta
PhD Student (Joined Fall 2025)
Neural Operators and PDE Control
Nima Chelongar
PhD Student (Joined Fall 2026)
Generative AI, Stochastic processes and Statistics
Leandro von Krannichfeldt
Visiting PhD Student (Spring 2026)
Hybrid Digital Twins for Building Energy Systems
Terry Zhang
Undergraduate Intern
Summer 2026, Grinnell College
Develops NLP and QP solvers for different application scenarios under Liang's supervision.
Aubin Vertueux Dzossa Bontse
Undergraduate Intern
Summer 2026, Furman University
Chance-constrained differentiable predictive control with margin flexibility for data-center chiller plants.
Zhikai Su
Undergraduate Intern
Summer 2026, Sichuan University
Derivative-free optimization for scientific machine learning and dynamical systems.