Department of Mathematics & Statistics 41st Annual Ostrom Lecture: Dr. Randall LeVeque, Numerical Simulation of Floods and Tsunamis
- Public Lecture 7:00-8:00 p.m., Cleveland Hall 30 |
- Reception 8:00-9:00 p.m., Neill 216 (Hacker Lounge) |
- Zoom Meeting ID: 967 0942 4512 |
- Zoom Meeting Passcode: 127726
About the event
Numerical Simulation of Floods and Tsunamis
Abstract: Catastrophic flooding is a major geophysical hazard that affects many coastal regions, as well as communities on rivers or downstream from potential dam failures or landslides. Numerical simulation is a powerful tool for use in hazard planning and mitigation, and also for issuing warnings and understanding on-going events in real time. The freely available open-source software GeoClaw has been under development for 20 years and is used by many agencies and research groups around the world. I will give a brief overview of the computational methods that are used, based on depth-averaged equations of fluid dynamics. But the main focus will be on specific applications, including tsunamis generated by earthquakes, asteroid impacts, or landslides, and the great Missoula floods that carved out many features in Washington State.
Speaker Bio: Dr. LeVeque has held appointments at the Courant Institute, UCLA, and ETH-Zürich, and has been on the faculty at the University of Washington since 1985. Dr. LeVeque enjoys teaching, and concentrates on classes in the fields of numerical analysis, partial differential equations, and nonlinear phenomena. He has written textbooks and lecture notes that are used at many universities. His research interests span many areas, including numerical analysis, computational fluid dynamics, nonlinear partial differential equations, mathematical theory of conservation laws, and software development, including the CLAWPACK software for solving conservation laws and other hyperbolic systems modeling wave propagation. He is also involved in research in many applications areas, including astrophysics, geophysics, and biophysics. Dr. LeVeque is a Fellow of SIAM, the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society.
About the T.G. Ostrom Lecture
The annual T. G. Ostrom Lecture brings internationally renowned mathematics scholars to the WSU campus each spring. The lecture honors the late Professor Emeritus Theodore G. Ostrom, who retired from WSU in 1981 after 21 years as a WSU Mathematics Department faculty member.