John B. Bell is an American mathematician and the Chief Scientist of the Computational Research Division at the

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...

. He has made contributions in the areas of

finite difference methods In numerical analysis, finite-difference methods (FDM) are a class of numerical techniques for solving differential equations by approximating Derivative, derivatives with Finite difference approximation, finite differences. Both the spatial dom ...

numerical methods Numerical analysis is the study of algorithms that use numerical approximation (as opposed to symbolic manipulations) for the problems of mathematical analysis (as distinguished from discrete mathematics). It is the study of numerical methods th ...

for low

Mach number Mach number (M or Ma) (; ) is a dimensionless quantity in fluid dynamics representing the ratio of flow velocity past a boundary to the local speed of sound. It is named after the Moravian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach. : \mathrm = \frac ...

flows,

adaptive mesh refinement In numerical analysis, adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) is a method of adapting the accuracy of a solution within certain sensitive or turbulent regions of simulation, dynamically and during the time the solution is being calculated. When solutions ...

, interface tracking and

parallel computing Parallel computing is a type of computation in which many calculations or processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. There are several different fo ...

. He has also worked on the application of these numerical methods to problems from a broad range of fields, including

combustion Combustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combusti ...

, shock physics,

seismology Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other ...

, flow in

porous media A porous medium or a porous material is a material containing pores (voids). The skeletal portion of the material is often called the "matrix" or "frame". The pores are typically filled with a fluid (liquid or gas). The skeletal material is usua ...

and

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the h ...

Career

Bell received his Ph.D. from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...

in 1979. Following a three-year stint at the

Naval Surface Weapons Center * A Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) is part of the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) operated by the United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the ...

, he spent four years at Exxon Production Research, where he was the group leader of the Applied Mathematics Group in the Long Range Research Division. He worked at

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response ...

from 1986 until 1996, when he joined

. He is currently the Chief Scientist in LBNL's Computational Research Division of the Computing Sciences Area. He was one of the founders and is the current managing editor of Communications in Applied Mathematics and Computational Science (CAMCOS).

Awards and honors

In 2018, Bell received the Berkeley Lab Prize Lifetime Achievement Award for "intellectual and strategic leadership in applied mathematics at LBNL, and for design and development of sophisticated numerical strategies to address critical scientific problems in support of DOE’s research missions.". In 2012, Bell was elected to the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...

. He is also a Fellow of the

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is a professional society dedicated to applied mathematics, computational science, and data science through research, publications, and community. SIAM is the world's largest scientific socie ...

(SIAM). He is the recipient of the

Sidney Fernbach Award The Sidney Fernbach Award established in 1992 by the IEEE Computer Society, in memory of Sidney Fernbach, one of the pioneers in the development and application of high performance computers for the solution of large computational problems as the ...

from the

IEEE Computer Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

in 2005, given each year to one person who has made "an outstanding contribution in the application of high performance computers using innovative approaches. He also received the

SIAM Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 mi ...

ACM ACM or A.C.M. may refer to: Aviation * AGM-129 ACM, 1990–2012 USAF cruise missile * Air chief marshal * Air combat manoeuvring or dogfighting * Air cycle machine * Arica Airport (Colombia) (IATA: ACM), in Arica, Amazonas, Colombia Computing * ...

prize for computational science and engineering in 2003.

References

External links

Bell's home page
at LBL * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bell, John B. Cornell University alumni Computational fluid dynamicists Numerical analysts 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians 1954 births Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics Living people Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni University of California, Berkeley staff Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences