[petsc-dev] Introducing myself

[Karl Rupp]

Dear petsc-dev folks,

as I've just started at the MCS division and met only some 
PETSc-developers in person, I would like to take the rather 
old-fashioned step of introducing myself to non-MCS developers.

Coming from a microelectronics/numerical mathematics background, my main 
work throughout my prae-doc years has been on deterministic solution 
approaches (i.e. non-Monte-Carlo) for Boltzmann's equation for 
semiconductors. To do so, the usual FEM/FVM requirements need to be met: 
Mesh handling, linear system assembly, linear system solves, plus some 
nonlinear headaches. As the complexity of monolithic codes does not 
blend well with the come-and-go of PhD students at my previous 
workplace, I've decided to take a library-centric approach, leading to a 
couple of orthogonal high-level C++ libraries. Out of these, the most 
widely used/known library is ViennaCL [1], which provides OpenCL-based 
linear algebra operations at the convenience of CPU-based high-level C++ 
libraries such as Boost.uBLAS. Other libraries I've authored and which 
are worth mentioning in this context are ViennaGrid [2] (mesh handling) 
and ViennaData [3] (generic data storage) plus the still rather immature 
ViennaMath [4] (static and dynamic symbolic math kernel targeted towards 
PDEs) and ViennaFEM [5] (finite elements, using ViennaMath).

My future work on PETSc will presumably focus on multicore architectures 
and extended GPU support. However, I'm still exploring options in order 
to find the sweet spot where I can contribute most. Discussions and 
proposals here on petsc-dev will follow :-)

Best regards,
Karli

[1] http://viennacl.sourceforge.net/
[2] http://viennagrid.sourceforge.net/
[3] http://viennadata.sourceforge.net/
[4] http://viennamath.sourceforge.net/
[5] http://viennafem.sourceforge.net/