Matthew J. Hoffman

I am an applied mathematician and professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where I use mathematical models to understand where plastic pollution goes once it enters lakes and oceans as well as estimating how much enters. My group produced the first estimates of how much plastic enters and floats in the Great Lakes, and we now study its transport through the water column, the global ocean, and the food web. I also work on data assimilation — blending models with observations — for problems ranging from lake and ocean hydrodynamics to hyperspectral remote sensing and the electrical dynamics of the heart.