Jinchao Xu, the Francis R. and Helen M. Pentz professor of science and the director of the Center for Computational Mathematics and Applications at Penn State, has been honored as a 2011 Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) for his outstanding contributions to the theory and applications of multilevel and adaptive numerical methods. He will be recognized later this year at the seventh annual International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics (ICIAM 2011) in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Xu is an expert on numerical methods for partial-differential equations that arise from modeling scientific and engineering problems. He is known for his many groundbreaking studies in developing, designing and analyzing fast methods for solving large-scale systems of equations. His work ranges from studying fundamental theoretical questions in numerical analysis to developing and applying numerical algorithms for practical applications. Several of the theories he has developed have had a major impact on the field of numerical methods for partial differential equations. He is, perhaps, best known for the Bramble-Pasciak-Xu preconditioner -- an algorithm that is one of the two most fundamental multigrid approaches for solving large-scale discretized partial-differential equations.
What makes Xu's research stand out is the speed with which his algorithms run for solving scientific and engineering problems. For example, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory recently applied an algorithm that he developed with his collaborator for solving magnetohydrodynamics equations. This algorithm was shown to be more than 25 times faster than the best algorithm used in Department of Energy labs at the time (2007). In 2008, the U.S. Department of Energy ranked it as one of the 10 breakthroughs in computational science in recent years.
Xu has published more than 100 scientific papers and he is ranked among the most highly cited mathematicians in the world by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI). In 2007, he was invited to give a plenary lecture at the International Congress for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, an event that is held every four years and that is the largest international conference for industrial and applied mathematics. He also received a Research Award for National Outstanding Youth (Class B) in 2006 in China. In honor of his achievements in computational-mathematics research and teaching, he received the Humboldt Award for Senior U.S. Scientists in 2005. In 1995, Xu's research accomplishments were recognized with the first Feng Kang Prize for Scientific Computing from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Xiangtan University in China. In addition, Xu received a Schlumberger Foundation Award in 1993, the Natural Science Award from the National Academy of Science in China in 1989, and the Liu Memorial Award at Cornell University in 1988.
Xu serves on editorial boards for many major journals in computational mathematics, and he is also a co-editor of many conference proceedings and research monographs. He is a guest professor at many universities including China's Peking University, where he is the Changjiang Professor. In addition, he is a member of the American Mathematical Society and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
Xu earned a doctoral degree at Cornell University in 1989. He earned a master's degree at Peking University in 1984 and a bachelor's degree at Xiangtan University in 1982, both in China.
The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is an international community of over 13,000 individual members, including applied and computational mathematicians, computer scientists, and other scientists and engineers.