Phillip Colella is an American applied mathematician and a member of the Applied Numerical Algorithms Group 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 also 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 ...

. He is known for his fundamental contributions in the development of mathematical methods and numerical tools used to solve

partial differential equation In mathematics, a partial differential equation (PDE) is an equation which imposes relations between the various partial derivatives of a Multivariable calculus, multivariable function. The function is often thought of as an "unknown" to be sol ...

s, including

high-resolution Image resolution is the detail an image holds. The term applies to digital images, film images, and other types of images. "Higher resolution" means more image detail. Image resolution can be measured in various ways. Resolution quantifies how cl ...

and

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 ...

schemes. Colella is a member of the US

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 ...

Career

Colella received his bachelor's degree in 1974, Master's degree in 1976, and Ph.D. in 1979 degree from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, all in applied mathematics. He received the Ph.D. degree under the supervision of

Alexandre Chorin Alexandre Joel Chorin (born 25 June 1938) is an American mathematician known for his contributions to computational fluid mechanics, turbulence, and computational statistical mechanics. Chorin's work involves developing methods for solving phy ...

. He began his research career at

, University of California, California. His primary area of research involves the development of high-resolution schemes and adaptive mesh refinement methods for the solution of partial differential equations. He has also applied computational methods in a variety of scientific and engineering fields, including low-speed

incompressible flow In fluid mechanics or more generally continuum mechanics, incompressible flow ( isochoric flow) refers to a flow in which the material density is constant within a fluid parcel—an infinitesimal volume that moves with the flow velocity. An e ...

s, shock wave theory,

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 ...

magnetohydrodynamics Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD; also called magneto-fluid dynamics or hydromagnetics) is the study of the magnetic properties and behaviour of electrically conducting fluids. Examples of such magnetofluids include plasmas, liquid metals, ...

, and astrophysical flows. Colella has also been the leader of a project in

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

's Computational Technologies for Earth and Space Sciences, called "Block-Structured Adaptive Mesh Refinement Methods for Multiphase Microgravity Flows and Star Formation".

Awards and honors

Colella is a member of the

since 2004 and Fellow of

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 many honors, including 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 1998, given each year to one person who has made "an outstanding contribution in the application of high performance computers using innovative approaches." He has 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 (with John Bell) for computational science and engineering in 2003.

Selected papers

* * * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Colella, Phillip UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni UC Berkeley College of Engineering faculty Computational fluid dynamicists Gonzaga College High School alumni Numerical analysts Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians Fellows of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics 1952 births Living people