The Barrett Lectures May, 2001 "New Directions and Developments in Computational Mathematics

University Of Tennessee Knoxville, Knoxville TN

Investigators

Abstract

The investigator and his colleagues organize the 2001 John H. Barrett Memorial Lectures in the University of Tennessee at Knoxville from May 10-12, 2001. The Barrett Lectures have been held annually since 1972. Each year a different topic is chosen, representing the research interests of the mathematics faculty of the University of Tennessee. Since 1993, the lectures have consisted of three one-hour survey talks by each of three leading researchers representing different themes/directions in a single field. The topic of the 2001 Barrett Lectures is: ``New Directions and Developments in Computational Mathematics". The focus of the lectures is parallel numerical algorithms for partial differential equations and their implementations and applications. The main speakers of the 2001 Barrett Lectures are Jinchao Xu of Penn State University, David Keyes of Old Dominion University and ICASE, and Mary Wheeler of University of Texas at Austin. Each of them will deliver three one-hour survey lectures on recent developments on parallel numerical algorithms with three different emphases: theory (Xu), computer implementation (Keyes), and application (Wheeler). In addition to the main speakers, six speakers are also invited to give one-hour talks on topics related to one of the main lectures. The Barrett Lectures are partly funded by a grant from Tennessee Science Alliance, and have often received additional support from the National Science Foundation. They attract wide interest, with an audience of between 40 and 50 participants from the whole country, in addition to faculty and students from Knoxville and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. They represent one of the few long standing lecture series in mathematics in the southeastern United States. The main objective of the 2001 Barrett Lectures is to provide the participants with an exposition of parallel numerical algorithms for partial differential equations arising from various scientific/engineering/industrial applications, through in-depth survey lectures and informal discussions with the above three leading researchers in the field. Additional goals are to foster interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly with researchers in the Computer Science Department and in the College of Engineering at the University of Tennessee and several other southeastern institutions, and to generate a set of written surveys in the subject, which the organizing committee will endeavor to have published in book form. The fund being requested from the NSF will be spent providing partial support towards travel and accommodation for $20$ graduate students and recent Ph.D.'s who do not have research grants.