Eric de Sturler

Adjunct Associate Professor
PhD, Delft University, 1994

Research Interests: Iterative methods and preconditioning, eigenvalue problems, nonlinear equations and large-scale optimization, numerical linear algebra, and high performance.

Research Group: Center for Simulation of Advanced Rockets (CSAR),Computational Science and Engineering (CSE),IBEAM project, and Materials Computation Center

Research Statement

Numerical simulation increasingly plays a crucial role in the study of complex physical and engineering systems, because it is often impossible or too expensive to analyze these experimentally. We are able to simulate these systems in increasing detail and complexity, but to do this we need to develop the appropriate numerical techniques such as discretization and solution methods and tools for analysis.

Prof. de Sturler's interests are in the theory and fast parallel implementation of algorithms for large-scale numerical computations. He is especially interested in techniques for solving linear and nonlinear systems of equations and eigenvalue problems and applications of these. Efficient parallel implementations to address complex and dynamically changing problems (adaptive meshes, coupled simulations, etc.) are another topic of interest.

Prof. de Sturler's group is developing these algorithms and techniques in the context of a wide variety of applications, such as material science (electronic structure calculations), the simulation of solid propellant rockets, crack propagation, structures and fatigue, deformation of metals (plasticity), radiation-diffusion problems on AMR meshes, simulating the human circulatory system, and surface parameterization for remeshing and texture mapping.

Representative Publications

A. Sheffer and E. de Sturler. Parameterization of Faceted Surfaces for Meshing Using Angle Based Flattening, Engineering with Computers Vol. 17, No. 3, pp. 326-337, 2001. Special issue: 10 best papers from the 9th International Meshing Round Table Conference.
E. de Sturler. Truncation Strategies for Optimal Krylov Subspace Methods. SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis, Vol. 36, pp. 864-889. 1999.
E. de Sturler and H. A. van der Vorst. Reducing the Effect of Global Communication in GMRES(m) and CG on Parallel Distributed Memory Computers. Applied Numerical Mathematics (IMACS), Vol. 18, pp. 441-459, 1995.

Honors and Awards

Leslie Fox Prize (1997); Associate Editor, SIAM Journal of Numerical Analysis (2002- ), and Program Director of the SIAM Activity Group on Supercomputing (2003-).

Home Page: http://www-faculty.cs.uiuc.edu/~sturler/

Email: Eric de Sturler