April 23, 2025
Graham F. Carey Computational Science Scholarship
Krithik Vishwanath, a computational engineering junior in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at The University of Texas at Austin, has been awarded the 2025 Graham F. Carey Computational Science Scholarship by the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences.
The award honors professor Carey’s revolutionary contributions to computational sciences. The $2,500 scholarship is awarded annually, giving preference to undergraduates undertaking the Computational Engineering and Sciences Certificate program, as well as those who participate in the Oden Institute’s Moncrief Summer Internship.
An aspiring physician with a passion for mathematics and computation, Vishwanath works under the mentorship of Tom Yankeelov at the Center for Computational Oncology. His research is broadly focused on modeling cancer growth to help optimize treatment strategies. His work applies biophysical models and numerical methods — particularly systems of ordinary differential equations — to simulate how cancers like pancreatic and triple-negative breast cancer evolve and respond to different therapies. These models incorporate pharmacokinetics to capture how drugs enter, move through, and exit the body, providing insight into how treatment timing and dosage can affect outcomes.
After graduation, Vishwanath plans to pursue a master’s degree in mathematics prior to medical school. He hopes to build a career as a physician-scientist, bridging medical modelling with clinical practice.
Ivo & Renata Babuška Scholarship
Fiona Romanoschi, a junior and informatics and mathematics double major at UT Austin, has been awarded the 2025 Ivo and Renata Babuska Scholarship. This award is funded through the Ivo & Renata Babuška Endowed Excellence Fund at the Oden Institute, honoring professor and Mrs. Babuška’s commitment to encouraging and supporting the next generation of scientists and engineers.
The $1,000 award recognizes and supports the studies of exceptional senior-level undergraduate students at the University who are undertaking research at the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences.
Romanoschi’s research at the Willcox Research Group, under the mentorship of postdoctoral fellow Nicole Aretz, focuses on computational glaciology. Her work aims to develop a reduced order model that approximates the dynamics of the Greenland Ice Sheet, a major contributor to global sea level rise. Addressing the computational expense of performing full-scale simulations of ice sheet behavior, her simplified model uses Proper Orthogonal Decomposition and operator inference, bridging high resolution simulation data with physical equations. She plans on continuing this work as a participant in the Moncrief Summer Internship Program.
After graduation, Fiona plans to pursue a Ph.D. in statistics, with the aim of continuing interdisciplinary, high-impact research. “I’m particularly drawn to problems at the intersection of science, policy, and society — whether that means improving our understanding of climate systems, or enhancing forecasting tools in political science,” she shared.
Krithik Vishwanath and Fiona Romanoschi’s achievements were recognized at an Oden Institute Awards Ceremony on April 17, 2025.
