Joel Dendy is deputy group leader of Group T-7 (Mathematical Modeling and Analysis), Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos New Mexico. Group T-7 consists of applied mathematicians and numerical analysts. "I belong to the latter subcategory," he says. "My role is to invent new algorithms for the efficient numerical solution of partial differential equations. Although I treasure generality, some of my best work has been in devising specific algorithms in response to a specific need."

"Mathematics plays an important role in the applied mathematics subset of the group. In the numerical analysis subset of the group, I'd have to say it plays a less important role. Certainly, the mathematical training, particularly knowledge of classical numerical analysis, is important, but the problems that arise are usually too hard to result in any beautiful theorems. Knowledge of computer science and of at least enough physics to be able to talk with physicists is equally important."

A recent project was joint work done with Hamdi Tchelepi of Chevron, an international petroleom company. "This project was dedicated to the efficient solution, on parallel computers, of implicit well problems," he explains. The terminology 'implicit well' means that the conservation constraints of the wells are solved simultaneously with the system of equations that describe the flow of multiple species ---e.g., gas, water, oil--- through porous media." The design of the algorithms required a knowledge of partial differential equation theory, linear algebra (Schur complements, to be precise), numerical analysis (multigrid methods, in particular), computer science (FORTRAN 90 sufficed in this case), and English (to write the paper)."

Joel has a B.S. and Ph.D. in mathematics from Rice University and has been at Los Alamos for 23 years. He was originally considered for a post doctoral position at Los Alamos, but his love of the Rocky Mountain area and his wife, who is from Colorado, led him to take a temporary position at University of Denver as an assistant professor of mathematics.

However, when a staff member position opened up in 1973 at Los Alamos, he took it. "I had no expectation of liking Los Alamos and no expectation of staying very long," he recalls. "Twenty-three years later I'm still here. For the most part, there has been great freedom to choose the problems that I want to work on, although this freedom is, I have to say, somewhat less now than it used to be."

"I am still basically a staff member, but since I help with the administration of the group, I have recently acquired the title of deputy group leader. For most of my career, I have worked either alone or with at most one other person; however, it appears that the current trend is to be associated with a small team. Most of the people I have worked with have a Ph.D. in some scientific discipline, usually physics."

Some areas of mathematics Joel recommends are theory of partial differential equations, linear algebra, numerical analysis and functional analysis. He adds that the physics, computer science, English, and other liberal arts courses are also useful .

He ends with the following: "In contrast to the advice to 'find out what you're good at and learn to like it', I'd have to say that it's more important to find out what you like and then to see if it's possible to make money doing that. Obviously, some compromise is necessary --- drinking great beer doesn't pay well, although the exception of the beer critic (not rock star) Michael Jackson comes to mind. Get as broad a technical and liberal arts education as possible, with a particular emphasis on learning to write and communicate well."

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