Education

• B.S., Optical Engineering, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana (2003-2007)
• Ph.D., Optical Sciences, University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona (2010-2016)
  Dissertation title: Exactly solvable light-matter interaction models for studying filamentation dynamics
• Postdoctoral Research Position, Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Centre de Physique Théorique, École Polytechnique, Palaiseau, France (2016-2019)

Background

I began my career as an engineer designing and building laser systems. During one of my projects at work, I was tasked with figuring out how a laser beam would propagate through a realistic atmosphere. I struggled to use the software tools that we had available since none of them were made to compute what we were interested in, so I decided to write a new in-house software tool. During this project, I fell in love with programming and developed a passion for creating software tools that assist others in solving difficult problems in their particular domains.

Wanting to learn more about computing in scientific domains, I left industry to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Arizona where I modeled and wrote code to simulate the quantum interactions that take place between intense laser pulses and the atoms and molecules of air. This work lead me to a postdoctoral research position that was shared between Louisiana State University and École Polytechnique. During this time, my wife and I had the wonderful opportunity of living near Paris for three years. We had a great experience learning the French language, France’s rich history and culture, and were able to travel to many of the unique regions around the country.

In 2019, my family moved to the Milwaukee area to join the faculty at WLC. Being at a small school, I have ample time to get to know my students and help them grow into competent computer scientists. I am a big proponent of project-based coursework in our curriculum. I think that students learn more and are more motivated if they take ownership of a project and are given opportunities to be creative. 

My goal as a professor is to hone the technical abilities of our students and aid them in discovering the same passion for computing that I enjoy.

Teaching

• CSC 131 – Intro to Programming
• CSC 231 – Object Oriented Design and Software Development
• CSC 311 – Data Structures
• CSC 321 – Computer Organization
• CSC 340 – Programming Language
• CSC 375 – Operating Systems
• CSC 410 – Computer Graphics
• CSC 471 – Data Communication
• CSC 485 – Senior Capstone Experience

Research Interests

• Programming language design and implementation: I am developing a programming language to assist non-expert programmers in performing numerical simulations. The goal of this project is to produce a language that has a familiar mathematical syntax for modeling quantities using ordinary and partial differential equations. The associated compiler translates this language into code that runs in parallel (for higher performance) on multicore CPUs, GPUs, and distributed systems.
• Computing laser-matter interactions: I’ve developed and continue to maintain a software tool for simulating how laser pulses move in gaseous media. The results produced from this project have contributed to multiple peer-reviewed papers.

For fun, I also enjoy writing code for generating photorealistic computer graphics, procedural dungeon generation for a roguelike game that I will probably never finish, and assisting the Computer Science Club with any projects that interest them.

Scholarly Works

R. Piccoli, J. Brown, Y.-G. Jeong, A. Rovere, L. Zanotto, M. B. Gaarde, F. Légaré, A. Couarion, J. C. Travers, B. E. Schmidt, R. Morandotti, and L. Razzari. "Multimode Nonlinear Optics Yields Few-Cycle Visible Light", Optics in 2022 December Edition, Optics & Photonics News (2022)

R. Piccoli, J. Brown, Y.-G. Jeong, A. Rovere, L. Zanotto, M. B. Gaarde, F. Légaré, A. Couarion, J. C. Travers, B. E. Schmidt, R. Morandotti, and L. Razzari. "Intense few-cycle visible pulses directly generated via nonlinear fibre mode mixing", Nature Photonics 15 (12), 884-889 (2021)

X. Ren, Y. Wang, Z. Chang, J. Welch, A. Bernstein, M. Downer, J. M. Brown, M. Gaarde, A. Couairon, M. Kolesik, and P. Polynkin. “In-line Spectral Interferometry in Shortwave-Infrared Laser Filaments in Air”, Phys. Rev. Lett. Vol. 123, Iss. 22, 223203 (2019)

D. Langevin, J. M. Brown, Mette B. Gaarde, and Arnaud Couairon. “Determination of molecular contributions to the nonlinear refractive index of air for mid-infrared femtosecond laser pulse excitation”, Phys. Rev. A 99, 063418 (2019)

J. M. Brown, A. Couairon, P. Polynkin, and M. B. Gaarde. “Analysis of the angular spectrum for ultrashort laser pulses”, JOSA B, Vol. 32, Issue 2, pp. A105-A111 (2019)

J. M. Brown, A. Couairon, and M. B. Gaarde. “Ab-initio calculations of the linear and nonlinear susceptibilities of N2, O2, and air in mid-infrared laser pulses”, Phys. Rev. A 97, 063421 (2018)

J. M. Brown, P. Jakobsen, A. Bahl, J. V. Moloney, and M. Kolesik, “On the convergence of quantum resonant-state expansion”, J. of Math. Phys. 57, 032105 (2016)

J. M. Brown, C. Shannor, E. M. Wright, and M. Kolesik, “Carrier-wave shape effects in optical filamentation”, Optics Letters Vol. 40, Issue 5, pp. 859-862 (2016)

J. M. Brown and M. Kolesik, “Properties of Stark resonant states in exactly solvable systems”, Advances in Mathematical Physics Vol. 2015, Article ID 125832 (2015)

A. Bahl, J. M. Brown, E. M. Wright, and M. Kolesik, “Assessment of the metastable electronic state approach as a microscopically self-consistent description for the nonlinear response of atoms”, Opt. Lett. 40, 4987-4990 (2015)

M. Kolesik, J. M. Brown, A. Teleki, P. Jakobsen, J. V. Moloney, and E. M. Wright, “Metastable electronic states and nonlinear response for high-intensity optical pulses”, Optica, 1, 323 (2015)

M. Kolesik, J. M. Brown, J. V. Moloney, and D. Faccio, “History-dependent effects in subcycle-waveform strong-field ionization”, Phys. Rev. A, Vol. 90, No. 3, 033414 (2014)

M. Kolesik, E. M. Wright, J. Andreasen, J. M. Brown, D. R. Carlson, and R. J. Jones, “Space-time resolved simulation of femtosecond nonlinear light-matter interactions using a holistic quantum atomic model: Applications to near-threshold harmonics”, Opt. Express, Vol. 20, Issue 14, pp. 16113-16128 (2012)

J. M. Brown, E. M. Wright, J. V. Moloney, and M. Kolesik, “On the relative roles of higher-order nonlinearity and ionization in ultrafast light-matter interactions”, Opt. Lett., Vol. 37, Iss. 10, pp. 1604-1606 (2012)

J. M. Brown, A. Lotti, A. Teleki, and M. Kolesik, “Exactly solvable model for nonlinear light-matter interaction in an arbitrary time-dependent field”, Phys. Rev. A, Vol. 84, No. 063424 (2011)

B. Cense, E. Koperda, J. M. Brown, O. P. Kocaoglu, W. Gao, R. S. Jonnal, and D. T. Miller, “Volumetric retinal imaging with ultrahigh-resolution spectral-domain optical coherence tomography and adaptive optics using two broadband light sources”, Optics Express, Vol. 17, Issue 5, pp. 4095-4111 (2009)

B. Cense, W. Gao, J. M. Brown, S. M. Jones, R. S. Jonnal, M. Mujat, B. H. Park, J. F. de Boer, and D. T. Miller, “Retinal imaging with polarization-sensitive optical coherence tomography and adaptive optics”, Optics Express, Vol. 17, Issue 24, pp. 21634-21651 (2009)

Service 

• Computer Science Department Head
• Curriculum Committee
• Faculty Advisor for the Archery Club

Professional Memberships

• Association for Computer Machinery (ACM)