Paradigms for a 21st Century University

Jan 25 2013

Wednesday, February 6, 2013
4:00 PM
Davis Auditorium, 4th floor CEPSR

"Paradigms for a 21st Century University"
David Keyes
KAUST / Columbia University

Abstract: KAUST is a graduate research institution, founded in 2009 by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, with research thrusts in energy, environment, food, and water for a sustainable planet, and supporting thrusts in core capabilities (modeling, simulation, analytics, software, and hardware). As a 45-sq km international academic village on the shores of the Red Sea, created to be a 21st century "House of Wisdom" in the tradition of the ninth century Bayt al Hikmah that gave the world some of its modern mathematics, physics, chemistry, and medicine, KAUST has been endowed with world-class facilities and has recruited an international research faculty. KAUST awards degrees in Applied Mathematics and Computational Science, Bioscience, Chemical Science, Chemical and Biological Engineering, Computer Science, Earth Science and Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Environmental Science and Engineering, Marine Science, Materials Science and Engineering, and Mechanical Engineering. Currently, KAUST enrolls about 800 students from about 60 different countries. The language of instruction is English. KAUST is co-educational and is established upon principles of intellectual freedom, non-discrimination, and merit-based promotion. For Fall 2013, KAUST seeks ambitious, academically talented, and highly motivated doctoral and master's candidates in sustainable technologies and the enabling sciences from the world's leading institutions to participate in discovery and translation into start-up enterprises. The founding Dean of KAUST's Computer, Electrical, and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering Division, and former Fu Foundation Professor of Applied Mathematics, David Keyes, will present KAUST's programs and take questions about life in today's Middle East and about starting a university from scratch.

Biosketch: David Keyes is a Professor of Applied Mathematics and Computational Science, and the inaugural Dean of the Division of Computer, Electrical, and Mathematical Sciences and Engineering (CEMSE) at KAUST, an adjunct professor in Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics at Columbia University, and an affiliate of several laboratories of the U.S. Department of Energy. Keyes graduated in Aerospace and Mechanical Sciences from Princeton in 1978, earned a doctorate in Applied Mathematics from Harvard in 1984, and post-doc'ed in Computer Science at Yale. He works at the algorithmic interface between parallel computing and the numerical analysis of partial differential equations. Keyes was awarded an NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1989, and has consulted extensively for NASA and the Department of Energy in large-scale simulation. For his algorithmic influence in scientific simulation, Keyes was recognized as a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) and of the American Mathematical Society (AMS), with the Sidney Fernbach Award of the IEEE Computer Society, and with ACM's Gordon Bell Prize. Author or editor of more than a dozen federal agency reports and member of several federal advisory committees on computational science and engineering and high performance computing, in 2011, Keyes received the SIAM Prize for Distinguished Service to the Profession.

Stay up-to-date with the Columbia Engineering newsletter

* indicates required