Seven postdoctoral fellows have joined the College of Science at the University of Notre Dame for the 2025-2026 academic year.
These fellows are all part of the college’s Society of Science Fellow Program, established to support highly motivated and accomplished early-stage scientists who are bound for research-intensive careers. Six fellows are part of the 2025 cohort of the Provost's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, the University-wide initiative launched in spring to support researchers committed to ND’s mission of being a powerful force for good in the world in the fields of science, engineering and the liberal arts. Fellows receive a stipend and research allowance, while benefitting from personal and professional development programming at the college and University level.
Applications for the Provost’s Postdoctoral Program are now open, with a deadline of December 15, 2025 and decisions announced in February. Early-stage scientists interested in research intensive careers in research universities, institutes or industries are highly encouraged to apply.
Khushi Bhatt, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Bhatt is working in the Department of Physics and Astronomy with Associate Professor Anna Simon-Robertson.
Bhatt’s research focuses on experimental nuclear astrophysics, studying the nuclear reactions that occur in stars to better understand how the chemical elements in the universe are created. This work helps explain the cosmic origins of the elements that make up our world and ourselves.
Qing Cao, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Cao is working in the lab of Assistant Professor Kaiyu Fu, which focuses on electrochemistry, nanoscience, and synthetic biology.
Her research develops bio-nano interfaces for high-throughput implantable sensors, enabling continuous, painless, and real-time monitoring of multiple biomarkers. By advancing early disease detection and personalized healthcare, this work has the potential to transform medical diagnostics and enhance point-of-care solutions.
Rodridgo de Pool Alcantara, Department of Mathematics
Alcantara is working with Assistant Professor Nick Salter and Notre Dame Professor of Topology Andrew Putman.
Alcantara’s research lies in the intersection of topology and group theory. A general goal in these fields is to relate properties of spaces, such as the solution space of an equation, to properties of their symmetries. These theoretical results expand understanding of fundamental branches of mathematics and, in the long run, of other sciences. Recent applications of topology include Topological Quantum Field Theory in physics and Topological Data Analysis in computer science.
Ravi Dhiman, Department of Biological Sciences
Dhiman, a Society of Science Fellow, Deans Fellow, is working in the lab of Xin Lu, John M. and Mary Jo Boler Collegiate Associate Professor.
Dhiman’s research examines how cancer cells emit stress signals to reprogram immune cells, enabling tumors to evade immune attack. Understanding these signals could reveal new strategies to block cancer’s defenses and improve cancer therapies.
David Gonzalez, Department of Mathematics
Gonzalez is working in Professor Peter Cholak’s lab in the Department of Mathematics, which examines the relationship between computability and definability.
Gonzalez’s research focuses on computability theory, a branch of mathematics that explores the limits of algorithms, expressibility, and proof. He is exploring the complexity of the mathematical objects that underpin most scientific endeavors.
Jielin Yang, Department of Applied and Computational Mathematics and Statistics
Yang is working with Robert and Sara Lumpkins Assistant Professor Guosheng Fu.
Yang’s research in applied mathematics and scientific computing focuses mainly on modeling complicated processes from physics such as fluid dynamics and using tools from scientific computing (primarily numerical method for partial differential equations) to simulate those problems. Those problems are hard to analyze, thus advance simulations are usually necessary.
Itamar Allali, Department of Physics and Astronomy
Allali is working with Assistant Professor Yuhsin Tsai.
Alalli’s research aims at understanding the biggest questions about the universe: what is the universe made of, what happened in the past, and what is our ultimate fate? He uses data from telescopes that observe stars, galaxies, and ancient light from the big bang to learn about the elementary particles that make up matter and energy, including some ingredients of the universe we know very little about: dark matter and dark energy.
Originally published by at science.nd.edu on October 13, 2025.