About me

Hi there! My name is Farris [my last name is my nickname. Confusing, I know(: ] and I’m a PhD student at Oregon State University. My primary mathematical interest is topological data analysis and general data science. TDA lives in the intersection of data science, topology, algebra, and computer science. TDA is a beatiful area to study because we get to think about very fun and interesting structures, while assigning (and deciding how to assign) meaning to those structures in a way that domain scientists can learn from. Data science often feels unwieldy or messy, while algebraic structures (once understood) feel beautiful, almost perfect. Merging the two is a worthwhile pursuit that can help scientists from all domains.

DRP

Morgan Burns (Spring 2026)

Morgan is a 2nd year undergraduate student majoring in mathematics. Spring 2026 was spent studying chapter 2 of “Computataional Topology for Data Analayis” by Tamal Dey and West Lafayette.

Research Projects

Nodule Segmentation of pea plants (2024-2026)

Designed an ImageJ2 plugin (ImageJ2 is a common image analysis software in the biology research community) to segment and analyze the nodules on pea plants, and to study their distances along the root systems.

• Image processing, clustering, java, graph theory, optimal pathing

quantum circuit simulation optimization (Summer 2024)

Studied the Gottesman-Knill stabilizer formalism, a theory explaining how quantum circuits containing only clifford gates (CNOT, Hadamard, phase gates, pauli measurements) can be simulated in polynomial time on a classical computer. Spent a summer trying to expand the formalism to include some other operations (namely certain Krauss operations) while minimizing both error and computational complexity.

• linear algebra, quantum simulation, error estimation

Causal Discovery (Summer 2026)

Studied Fujitsu’s Causal AI pipeline which takes as input a data matrix and combines Wide Learning (a method for finding linguistic conditions that maximize some target variable), and Direct LiNGAM (an algorithm for computing causal graphs). Spent a summer developing novel topological and geometric techniques for studying the output of the pipeline.

• topology, geometry, analysis, data science, method development, graph theory, linear algebra, python

In my free time I enjoy training brazilian jiujitsu, snowboarding, studying psychology and philosophy, and reflecting on the nature of emotions.

My brazilian jiujitsu coach promoting me to blue belt. An exciting day!

For the internet strangers who scrolled this far, here are some quotes I like that may be helpful.

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste much of it.

Seneca

Breath is the bridge which connects life to consciousness, which unites your body to your thoughts.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Strong back. Soft front. Wild heart.

Brene Brown