Vasu Chetty Defends Ph.D. Dissertation

March 9, 2017

Vasu Chetty became IDeA Labs’ first Ph.D. graduate on Thusday when he successfully defended his dissertation, entitled “Theory and Applications of Network Structure of Complex Dynamical Systems.” Vasu’s accomplishments included generalizing the definition of the Dynamical Structure Function to arbitrary causal linear time-invariant systems, identifying necessary and suffecient conditions for network reconstruction–highlighting the fact that target specificity is not necessary (as previously thought), and developing a new technique for determining the meaning, or semantics, of partial structure representations of network systems. He also improved existing network reconstruction algorithms, developed a process for reconstruction that is passive–or doesnt require active experimentation, and applied the results to various problems in biochemical reaction network reconstruction, financial systems, social media networks, and cyber security. Vasu has returned to his alma mater, BYU Hawaii, to be an assistant professor in their computer science department. There, he will launch a new branch of IDeA Labs, focused on mentoring undergraduate students and preparing them to either start their own consulting businesses as software engineers or go on to graduate school.