Michael Holst

  Visiting Associate in Physics, Department of Physics, Caltech, 2002-Present.
  Professor, Department of Mathematics, UC San Diego, 2003-Present.
  Associate Professor, Department of Mathematics, UC San Diego, 2000-2003.
  Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, UC San Diego, 1998-2000.
  Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, UC Irvine, 1997-1998.
  von Karman Instructor, Applied Mathematics, Caltech, 1995-1997.
  Prize Postdoctoral Fellowship, Applied Mathematics, Caltech, 1993-1995.
  Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1993.
  M.S., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1990.
  B.S., Colorado State University, 1987.

Office:

  5739 AP&M
  858-534-4899
  mholst@math.ucsd.edu

Short Bio:

  Professor Holst joined the UCSD Mathematics Department in Summer 1998.
  Prior to arriving at UCSD, he was an assistant professor at UC Irvine
  during 1997-1998, and from 1993-1997 he was a Prize Research Fellow and
  a von Karman Instructor of Applied Mathematics at the California Institute
  of Technology.  Professor Holst was a UCSD Hellman Fellow in 1999, and
  was the recipient of an NSF CAREER Award during the period 1999-2004 for
  his research in computational and applied mathematics.  He is currently PI,
  Co-PI, and/or on the steering committees for a number of interdisciplinary
  research projects and centers at UCSD and elsewhere, including:

    o The Center for Computational Mathematics
          (CCoM; http://ccom.ucsd.edu/)
    o The Computational Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Program 
          (CSME; http://csme.ucsd.edu/)
    o The Center for Theoretical Biological Physics
          (CTBP; http://ctbp.ucsd.edu/)
    o The National Biomedical Computation Resource
          (NBCR; http://nbcr.ucsd.edu/)
    o The La Jolla Interfaces in Science Program
          (LJIS; http://ljis.ucsd.edu/)
    o The Southern California Applied Mathematics Symposium
          (SoCAMS; http://socams.ucsd.edu/)
    o The Interfaces Graduate Training Program
          (http://interfaces.ucsd.edu/)
    o The Bioinformatics Ph.D. Program
          (http://bioinformatics.ucsd.edu/)
    o The Holst Research Group
          (HRG; http://ccom.ucsd.edu/~mholst/group/)
    o The Finite Element ToolKit
          (FETK; http://www.fetk.org/)

  Professor Holst's general research background and interests are in a broad
  area called computational and applied mathematics; his specific research
  areas are in adaptive numerical methods, finite element methods, geometric 
  partial differential equations (PDE), biophysics, and general relativity.
  His research projects center around developing mathematical techniques
  (theoretical techniques in PDE and approximation theory) and mathematical
  algorithms (numerical methods) for using computers to solve certain types
  of mathematical problems called nonlinear PDE.  These types of problems
  arise in nearly every area of science and engineering; this is just a
  reflection of the fact that physical systems that we try to manipulate
  (e.g., the flow of air over an airplane wing, or the chemical behavior
  of a drug molecule), or build (e.g., the wing itself, or a semiconductor),
  or simply study (such as the global climate, or the gravitational field
  around a black hole) are described mathematically by nonlinear PDE.  In
  simple cases, these problems can be simplified so that purely mathematical
  techniques can be used to solve them, but in most cases they can only be
  solved using sophisticated mathematical algorithms designed for use with
  computers.  Computational simulation of PDE is now critical to almost all
  of science and engineering; the mathematicians provide the mathematical
  tools and understanding so that scientists in physics, chemistry, biology,
  engineering, and other areas can confidently use the modern techniques of
  computational science in the pursuit of new understanding in their fields
  of study.  To learn more about Professor Holst's particular research
  program, please see his webpage:  http://ccom.ucsd.edu/~mholst/