My name is David Van Komen, and I am a Computer Science Ph.D. student at the University of Utah studying and researching the field of scientific computation. At my core, I am a physicist turned computer scientist that enjoys solving difficult problems with computers. I received both a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in physics from Brigham Young University.

As a Ph.D. student, my current research involves simulation of binary black hole mergers to produce fast computation of gravitational wave signals. The project is aimed to help the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) Mission identify various gravitational waves from measured signals. On top of these simulations, I am also researching how to incorporate machine learning into these simulations to improve speed, as well as code generation from symbolic equations to simulate complicated and intricate physical systems.

As a physics master's student, I studied underwater acoustics at Brigham Young University. I specifically researched applications of machine learning to source localication and seafloor identification. This research led to multiple conference talks as well as several publications. The research also continues at BYU by my advisor, Tracianne Nielsen, and her students.