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About Me:

I am an applied mathematician working in the area of mathematical biology. I also have an interest in numerical methods for fluid structure interaction,  and in high performance computing.  I received my PhD in 2018 from the University of Colorado at Boulder. My advisor was Prof. David Bortz, though I also spent the summer of 2016 at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab working with Phil Colella and Dan Martin. As a graduate student, I was a member of the CU MathBio group and a Dept. of Energy CSGF fellow. Since then I have been a post-doc at the University of Minnesota working under the mentorship of Prof. Hans Othmer. 

My current research projects are related to growth control in cellular tissues, cytoskeletal mechanics, and on how cell-level behavior impacts macro-scale tissue properties. In particular, I have been studying 

  • How various types of spatially distributed transport behaviors within in cells lead to tissue-wide effective transport properties that are often estimated from experimental data
  • How cytoskeletal and other mechanical components of a cell lead to the production of mechanical forces  and subsequent motion and shape changes of a cell
  •  Mathematical modelling and numerical simulation of colonies of bacteria called biofilms

Ongoing Research Projects

  1.  Modeling the effects of osmotic and electrochemical transport on cell shape and volume. Particular emphasis on the role of Calcium dynamics and its connections with cytoskeletal forces and membrane surface tension. (with Joseph Hoang and Hans Othmer)
  2. Developing models and novel computational methods for studying the complex viscoelastic and active matter properties of the cell cytoskeleton. Particular emphasis on how the cytoskeleton is coupled to passive mechanical structures in a cell, and how phase transitions play a role in regulating cytoskeletal forces. (with Hans Othmer)
  3. Developing and analyzing theoretical and computational models of cytoneme-based transport in cellular tissues. (with Hans Othmer)

Teaching Experience as Lead Instructor:

  1. Math 2243 Differential Equations and Linear Algebra (current, Fall 2022)
  2. Math 5445 Mathematical Analysis of Biological Networks (upcoming, Spring 2023)
  3. Math 4567 Fourier Analysis and Boundary Value Problems (Spring 2020)

The following is a list of peer-reviewed research articles*:

  1. Stotsky, Jay A. and Hans G. Othmer. The Role of Cytonemes and Diffusive Transport in the Establishment of Morphogen Gradients. Submitted, Journal of Theoretical Biology. (2022)
  2. Stotsky, Jay A. and Hans G. Othmer. The Effects of Internal Forces and Membrane Heterogeneity on Cell Shapes. To Appear, Journal of Mathematical Biology. (2022)
  3. Stotsky, Jay A. and Hans G. Othmer. How surrogates for cortical forces determine cell shape.  International Journal of Non-Linear Mechanics (2022): 103907.
  4. Stotsky, Jay A., Jia Gou, and Hans G. Othmer. “A Random Walk Approach to Transport in Tissues and Complex Media: From Microscale Descriptions to Macroscale Models.” Bulletin of Mathematical Biology 83.9 (2021): 1-84.
  5. Gou, Jia, Jay A. Stotsky, and Hans G. Othmer.  Growth control in the Drosophila wing disk. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Systems Biology and Medicine 12.3 (2020): e1478.
  6. Stotsky, Jay A., and David M. Bortz.  A posteriori error analysis of fluid–structure interactions: Time dependent error. Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering 356 (2019): 1-15.
  7. Stotsky, Jay Alexander, Vanja Dukic, and David M. Bortz.  A point process model for generating biofilms with realistic microstructure and rheology.  European Journal of Applied Mathematics 29.6 (2018): 1141-1177.
  8. Stotsky, Jay A., et al.  Variable viscosity and density biofilm simulations using an immersed boundary method, part II: Experimental validation and the heterogeneous rheology-IBM.  Journal of Computational Physics 317 (2016): 204-222.

*Articles listed as submitted or in preparation are available upon request.

Thesis:

Mathematical and Computational Studies of the Biomechanics of Biofilms. University of Colorado at Boulder, 2018. Thesis Advisor: David Bortz

For more information, please see my CV and research description below. 

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