Dr. Kostadinova is an Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at Auburn University, with an affiliate appointment in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. Her research lies at the intersection of fundamental physics, applied mathematics, and data-driven modeling, with a focus on anomalous diffusion, nonlocal interactions, and turbulence in strongly coupled systems. Her group uses dusty plasma as a unique experimental platform for studying emergent collective behavior, where individual particles are directly observable and the system’s kinetic phase space can be reconstructed. A particular focus is understanding the energy transport and cross-scale interactions in three-dimensional dusty plasma clouds and two-dimensional monolayers, including both forward and inverse energy cascades. To model these complex dynamics, Dr. Kostadinova employs a Fractional Laplacian Spectral (FLS) approach, which combines spectral theory and fractional calculus to capture anomalous transport and stochasticity.