Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering
GATAS Lab
Led by James Fairbanks · Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
What we study
The GATAS Lab uses category theory, a branch of abstract mathematics, to build better scientific-computing software. The aim is to turn the structure behind physics, biology and engineering models into code scientists can run.
What working here is like
- Computational
- No organisms (data only)
- Coding required
- Projects
- 3
- Papers
- 5
Current projects
Decapodes
Develops Decapodes, a software tool built on category theory for describing and solving physics equations on computers.
Optimization and Control
Uses category theory, an area of abstract mathematics, to build optimization and control methods for scientific software.
Show 1 more projectsShow fewer
Sheaves
Uses sheaves, a mathematical tool from category theory, to organize structure in scientific computing software.
Summaries are written by AI in plain language from public symposium abstracts and may be imperfect.
Recent papers, explained
- Lassos: Pushing Tree Decompositions Forward Along Homomorphisms
2026 · Applied Categorical Structures
Shows how tree-width behaves under graph contractions.
- Generalized Gradient Descent is a Hypergraph Functor
2025 · Electronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science
Links gradient descent to hypergraph functors for optimization.
Show 3 more papersShow fewer
- Decapodes: A diagrammatic tool for representing, composing, and computing spatialized partial differential equations
2024 · Journal of Computational Science
- A compositional account of motifs, mechanisms, and dynamics in biochemical regulatory networks
2024 · Compositionality
Uses math to study how molecules interact in living systems.
- GATlab: Modeling and Programming with Generalized Algebraic Theories
2024 · Electronic Notes in Theoretical Informatics and Computer Science
Builds a tool to model math problems using category theory.
Plain-language summaries are AI-written and reviewed by us; check the paper for details.
How to reach out
James Fairbanks hasn't set up this page yet. You can also look them up in the UF directory (search “James Fairbanks”).