Jan Hesthaven named Director of the Center for Computing and Visualization

The Office of the Vice President for Research is pleased to announce that Jan S Hesthaven, Professor of Applied Mathematics, will be the new Director of the Center for Computing and Visualization.

The Office of the Vice President for Research is pleased to announce that Jan S Hesthaven, Professor of Applied Mathematics, will be the new Director of the Center for Computing and Visualization (CCV: http://www.cascv.brown.edu/). The CCV develops and maintains an advanced immersive visualization and computing facility supporting the Brown research community. As the Director, Professor Hesthaven will supervise the activities of the Center and be responsible for the development of new educational and outreach initiatives, the pursuit of funding opportunities, establishing and guiding alliances with other institutions, and the management of new technology development projects.

Professor Hesthaven received a Ph.D. in Numerical Analysis from the Technical University of Denmark in 1995. He was subsequently awarded an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Advanced Scientific Computing and was appointed Visiting Assistant Professor in the Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown. As of July 1999, he was appointed Assistant Professor of Applied Mathematics, in January 2003, he was promoted to Associate Professor and as of July 2005, he was promoted to full Professor. He has been awarded an Alfred P Sloan research fellowship, a National Science Foundation Career award, the Philip J Bray award for excellence of teaching in the Sciences and a Manning Assistant Professorship, both from Brown. He is an associate editor of several major journals and has received continued funding from the National Science Foundation, the Airforce Office of Scientific Research, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. He serves as a consultant to several research based companies.

Professor Hesthaven's research interests can broadly be defined as the development, analysis, and application of high-order accurate methods for the solution of partial differential equations. Particular emphasis is on high-order finite difference and spectral methods, and spectral element and discontinuous Galerkin methods, in particular for problems in complex geometries. Applications include gas dynamics, electromagnetic scattering, micro optics and photonics, plasma physics, and cosmology.

Clyde L. Briant
Vice President for Research