Mathematical modeling alumnus wins early career award
Adam Giammarese uses chaos theory to help solve real-world problems
Alumnus Adam Giammarese received the Ed Lorenz Early Career Award from the publication 'Chaos' for his research using chaos theory to solve real-world problems.
RIT alumnus Adam Giammarese’s work in chaos theory has earned him the Edward N. Lorenz Early Career Award, an annual recognition by the publication Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science.
Giammarese ’21 BS/MS (applied mathematics), ’25 Ph.D. (mathematical modeling) received the accolade for his research, which used an innovative approach for analyzing large-scale climate data known as climate network analysis. He, along with his adviser and co-author RIT Associate Professor Nishant Malik, highlighted the changing connectivity of the Amazon rainforest to the global climate in a paper published in Chaos in early 2024.
The award honors emerging researchers who have done exceptional work in nonlinear science. Ed Lorenz, the award’s namesake, was the founder of chaos theory. The other honorees alongside Giammarese published their notable research while studying at universities in Australia, Spain, and the Netherlands.
“It’s surreal,” said Giammarese on winning the award. “I did not get my start in math. I started at RIT 10 years ago as a mechanical engineering student, but I ended up finding a passion in math. We are a smaller school in terms of the grand stage of global research, so it’s really cool to see that we’re being recognized.”
Giammarese pivoted from engineering to math because he liked how, in math, everything had a right answer, and every problem had a clear solution. Chaos, specifically, interested him because of its real-world applications. As he explained, math is a way of interpreting data, making conclusions from it, and trying to better understand the world.
Now as a staff engineer at Numerical Advisory Solutions in Cary, N.C., he is using his math skills and machine learning to improve the operations of nuclear power plants. He was introduced to the company through his best friend, a fellow RIT student with whom he had engineering classes. He also met his future wife at RIT, Meghan Childs ’22 MS (applied and computational mathematics) ’25 Ph.D. (mathematical modeling), as they were in the same academic program.
“This is one of the two best things to come out of the program for me, to be recognized for following my passion. And the other is my soon-to-be wife,” said Giammarese. “It’s really a positive thing, starting at RIT 10 years ago and now moving and getting married later this year, and then this award, to boot.”
