Ben Burns

Hello! I am a second-year PhD student in Computational Science and Engineering at Georgia Tech, where I am co-advised by Peng Chen and Sara Fridovich-Keil. My research interests are in generative modeling and in inverse problems. I am grateful to be supported by the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.

Before moving to Georgia Tech, I completed my undergrad in math and CS at UMass Amherst, where I had the privilege to work with Markos Katsoulakis and Benjamin Zhang on score-based diffusion models.

I am passionate about teaching, with an emphasis on high school and early-college STEM education. During my time at UMass, I was heavily involved with the Undergraduate Course Assistant (UCA) program, serving both as a Head UCA and as a UCA program coordinator. I am proud to have been recognized with one of the inaugural Lifetime UCA awards.

upcoming

[2026-04-03] I’ll be presenting a poster on SVGD with neural operators at the 2026 Southeast ACM Student Workshop at Emory University.
[2026-03-25] I’ll be presenting our on-going work on SVGD with neural operators at SIAM UQ26 in Minneapolis, MN.

recently

[2026-02-21] I presented a poster on SVGD with neural operators at GSCS 2026.
[2025-06-13] I was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship.
[prehistory] old news

some writings

[2024-12-27] Picking UMass CICS Electives
[2024-07-15] Navigating the UMass CICS course requirements
[2024-05-21] Advice for UMass Math + CS undergrads interested in research
[2024-04-21] My UMassCTF 2024 challenges
[2023-06-25] “Missing Skills” not taught by the UMass CICS curriculum