Scientific Computing Survey
The Division of Scientific Computing (DSC) at Uppsala University is a leading center for research and education in Scientific Computing. The division is part of the Department of Information Technology. The research at DSC has a broad scope, ranging from classical numerical analysis over software development and high-performance computing (HPC) to collaborative projects in Computational Science and Engineering, and industrial applications.
The doctoral education program at DSC has so far (2017) yielded a total of 108 Doctors. Many of them have continued a career as leading researchers in Scientific Computing.
DSC hosts competence in a wide range of Scientific Computing aspects: mathematical analysis; development and analysis of numerical approximations for PDE; numerical linear algebra algorithms; HPC algorithms; and programming techniques.
The research is conducted in close relation to important application fields, such as fluid flow, electromagnetics, and acoustics, often within collaborative projects including researchers from other departments/institutes or industry. Recently, problems in, e.g., geology, systems biology, quantum mechanics, financial mathematics, and genetics have been added to the DSC project portfolio. The main focus is on problems modeled by time-dependent partial differential equations. The pure PDE problems are in some cases being replaced by more complex models. For example, several recently initialized research projects involve hybrid numerical methods, combining PDE with ODE or stochastic models.
A hallmark of DSC is that research projects not only consider mathematical modeling and numerical methods, but also exploit the full potential of using modern HPC resources for large-scale computations. DSC has a strong tradition in design of efficient algorithms and implementation of scientific software for large-scale problems. DSC acquired its first parallel computer system already in 1987, and has led the development of HPC at Uppsala University since then, including the recent build-up of the Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science, UPPMAX.