Faculty Mentorship

A core part of my role as a senior faculty member and DMLab director is cultivating the next generation of research leaders. I take particular pride in having supported the following colleagues through their early career development — from research direction and grant writing to navigating the institutional landscape of academic life.

Berkay Aydin

Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, Georgia State University GSU Profile

Berkay joined GSU as a direct outcome of his doctoral work in my lab, where he completed his PhD in 2017 on spatiotemporal event sequence mining — work that culminated in our co-authored Springer monograph Spatiotemporal Frequent Pattern Mining from Evolving Region Trajectories (2018). I supported his transition into a faculty role and continued to collaborate closely on heliophysics AI research, joint grant development (including NSF and NASA awards), and student co-supervision. Berkay has since built an independent and highly productive research program and is a valued PI and co-PI on several DMLab projects.

Viacheslav (Slava) Sadykov

Assistant Professor, Department of Physics & Astronomy, Georgia State University GSU Profile

My collaboration with Slava began before he joined GSU — we first worked together on the “Machine Learning in Heliophysics and Space Weather Forecasting” white paper (Nita, Georgoulis, Sadykov, Angryk et al., arXiv 2020), which grew out of a January 2020 workshop at NJIT that brought together heliophysicists and computer scientists to chart the field’s AI direction. That collaboration made clear that Slava’s combination of observational solar physics expertise and machine learning fluency was exactly what the DMLab heliophysics cluster needed.

Dustin J. Kempton

Research Assistant Professor, Department of Computer Science, Georgia State University

Dustin completed his PhD under my supervision in 2018 and transitioned into a Research Assistant Professor role at GSU. I mentored him through the transition from doctoral student to independent researcher — supporting his development as a PI, co-investigator, and research software architect. He is a major contributor to the DMLab’s Space Weather Data Toolkit, an open-source cyberinfrastructure resource serving the broader space weather community. Dustin now serves as Co-Investigator on multiple active NASA and NSF grants and leads the cyberinfrastructure development strand of the DMLab research program.

Talwinder Singh

Assistant Professor, Department of Physics & Astronomy, Georgia State University

My awareness of Talwinder’s work predates his arrival at GSU — I had been exposed to his research and MHD simulation interests through the peer review process, which gave me an early appreciation for the quality of his work. When the opportunity arose to expand the DMLab heliophysics cluster, he was a natural fit. Since joining GSU’s Physics & Astronomy department in August 2024, I have supported his early career development through collaborative grant writing, joint graduate student supervision, and integration into the DMLab’s AI and data science research ecosystem — complementing the heliophysics community connections he brought with him.

Yubao Wu

Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science, Georgia State University GSU Profile

My connection with Yubao goes back to the faculty search that brought him to GSU — I chaired the search committee that hired him into the Department of Computer Science. We struck up a friendship from the start, and I informally advised him through his assistant professor years, sharing perspective on navigating departmental life, grant development, and building a research program. His work on big data analytics, graph mining, and cybersecurity complements the DMLab research agenda, and our collaboration has spanned both research and the broader shared mission of growing data science at GSU.

Li-Hsiang Lin

Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics & Statistics

I mentored Li-Hsiang during AY 2023–2024 through the GSU LAUNCH Program, which pairs junior faculty with experienced faculty mentors to support their research development and integration into the academic community.

For more on current and former DMLab members, visit sites.google.com/view/dmlab/team.