Keynote Information

Professor Armin Kargol studied physics and mathematics at the University of Wroclaw in Poland and performed his graduate studies in Physics at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He did postdoctoral work at the Institute for Mathematics and Its Applications at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and at Tulane University in New Orleans before joining the faculty at Eastern Mediterranean University in Cyprus. He joined the faculty of Loyola University in New Orleans in 2003.

Initially, Prof. Kargol’s research was concerned with mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics, including semiclassical and Born-Oppenheimer approximations as well as C*-algebras of operators. However, soon after completing his PhD, Prof. Kargol became interested in mathematical modeling of biological processes, in particular transport processes on a cellular level, as well as experimental studies of membrane transport processes. His research now concentrates on nonequilibrium properties of ion channels in cellular membranes. It involves ion channel electrophysiology, numerical simulations, and theoretical analysis of channel gating kinetics. Another area of his interest is the thermodynamics of membrane transport processes. Prof. Kargol leads a Biophysics Lab devoted to patch clamping studies on voltage-gated ion channels.

Prof. Kargol has taught physics in Poland and at Tulane University in New Orleans. At Loyola University he has been responsible for physics courses for pre-health students and for introductory and advanced physics courses for majors.

Beyond his work in the lab and classroom, Prof. Kargol is a tremendous proponent of undergraduate education and research. Not only does he regularly have multiple undergraduate students in his own research group, he also wrote the key textbook in his field, Introduction to Cellular Biophysics.