Rate My Professor Jonathan Walters

Jonathan Walters serves as a Lecturer and Program Chair of the Computational Analysis and Modeling program in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at Louisiana Tech University. He earned his Ph.D. in Computational Analysis and Modeling and Master of Science in Mathematics from Louisiana Tech University in 2014, with a dissertation titled "Analysis of a mathematical model for the heave motion of a micro aerial vehicle with flexible wings having non-local damping effects," advised by Katie Allison Evans.

His research interests lie in control systems for partial differential equation (PDE) models, both theoretically and numerically. This includes the implementation of B-Spline basis functions in finite element methods for cantilevered beams and numerical linear algebra techniques for solving the Fractional Schrödinger Equation. Walters has made significant contributions to the analysis of flexible-wing micro air vehicle models incorporating spatial hysteresis damping. Key publications include "Proof of well-posedness for a flexible-wing micro air vehicle model control problem incorporating spatial hysteresis" (2019, American Control Conference, with J.B. Walters, K.A. Evans); "A Cacciopoli-type inequality to prove coercivity of a bilinear form associated with spatial hysteresis internal damping for an Euler-Bernoulli beam" (2015, Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications, with B.S.W. Schröder, J.B. Walters, K.A. Evans); "Frequency and time domain analysis of an aeroelastic wing multiple component structure" (2015, Numerical Functional Analysis and Optimization, with A. Chakravarthy et al.); and "A comparison of morphing control strategies for a flexible wing micro air vehicle model incorporating spatial hysteresis damping" (2014, IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, with J.B. Walters et al.). More recently, he co-authored "Rethinking Precalculus: A Thematic Approach" (2024).

In addition to his research, Walters is actively involved in teaching and mentoring. He advises numerous undergraduate senior capstone projects on topics such as Nash Equilibrium in discrete cases (2022), linear control techniques for UAVs (2024), abstract measures on totally ordered sets (2024), and the Riemann Curvature Tensor (2019). He organizes the annual Integration Bee at Louisiana Tech and has presented at events like the LSU Student Colloquium. As co-Principal Investigator with Blake Farman, Ann Clifton, and Stacey McAdams, he secured a $60,875 grant from the Louisiana Board of Regents in 2025 to establish the AXIOM Lab, a hub for student-faculty research in mathematics and statistics and industry networking.