Connor Magoon

I am an Applied Mathematics PhD student at UNC Chapel Hill.

I have broad interests, spanning understanding physical phenomena to developing mathematical tools for solving applied problems. One central thread sewn through all my work is geometry: leveraging simple geometry as a means for explanation, and tackling complex geometry which is prevalent in the non-ideal real world. I work on simulations and modeling of fluids in the Physical Mathematics Lab under the direction of Prof. Pedro Sáenz, and in the intersection of optimization, machine learning, and graphics with advisor Prof. Shahar Kovalsky.
About Research Code CV Google Scholar ORCID GitHub LinkedIn connorwm (at) live.unc.edu

Research

Click figures for project descriptions.

Collective Galloping Bubbles

Ongoing work

Magoon, Liu, Guan, Tamim, Stone, Sáenz

Neural Mappings

Ongoing work

Magoon, Yang, Aigerman, Kovalsky

Galloping Bubbles: Three-Part Series

A deep-dive experimental, numerical, and theoretical follow-up to our initial discovery of galloping bubbles, which are vertically vibrating millimetric-sized bubbles that spontaneously break symmetry and self-propel along a horizontal wall. At their heart is the parametric excitation of symmetrical and asymmetrical shape modes that together generate a non-reciprocal deformation, enabling the bubble to `swim'.

Experiments: Guan et al., Simulations: Magoon et al., Theory: Tamim et al.

Coming soon

dQP: Differentiating Quadratic Programs

dQP is a modular framework for differentiating the solution to a quadratic programming problem (QP) with respect to its parameters, enabling the seamless integration of QPs into machine learning architectures and bilevel optimization. dQP supports over 15 state-of-the-art QP solvers.

Magoon*, Yang*, Aigerman, Kovalsky

NeurIPS (2025)

Paper Code Poster Video

Galloping Bubbles

We discover, rationalize, and apply a fluid instability in which a vertically vibrating millimetric-sized bubble spontaneously breaks symmetry and self-propels along a horizontal wall. Applications include bubble removal, bubble sorting, surface cleaning, and even solving mazes!

Awarded an APS DFD Gallery of Fluid Motion Award.

Guan*, Tamim*, Magoon*, Stone, Sáenz

Nature Communications (2025)

Paper Gallery Paper Video

Traveling Faraday Waves

We present a Faraday wave instability where a vertically vibrated annular bath spontaneously breaks symmetry from standing waves into fast traveling waves.

Awarded an APS DFD Gallery of Fluid Motion Award.

Guan, Magoon, Durey, Camassa, Sáenz

Physical Review Fluids (2023)

Gallery Paper Video

Code

Click figures for project repositories.

dQP: Differentiating Quadratic Programs

Packaged by PyPI. Installation command:
pip install libdqp