Patrick Knupp is Vice President of Ecodynamics Research Associates, a small R & D firm in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The firm is made up of about a half dozen people, mostly with Ph.D.'s, primarily in engineering. Support staff includes software/hardware programmers, an accountant, and an administrative assistant. Pat is the only Ph.D. mathematician in the Albuquerque office.
"Our primary products are computer codes that simulate phenomena related to environmental engineering and computational fluid dynamics. This is done by solving PDE's," he says. "There is a pressing need for such codes in the environmental arena. For example, the U.S. Air Force has over 1900 sites around the world which are contaminated with spilled jet fuel, which can be highly toxic to humans. The estimated cost of cleanup is one billion dollars. Computer modeling and simulation has the potential to reduce this cost."
"I am currently co-Principal Investigator on an Air Force contract, 'High-Accuracy Robust Groundwater Flow and Transport Codes for Environmental Engineering.' This involves budgeting, scheduling, technical writing, giving oral presentations, and - on good days - algorithm development."
For the past eight years, Pat has been assisting Sandia National Laboratory in developing groundwater flow and transport codes to be used in environment compliance assessment. In this capacity he has developed a groundwater flow code which is based on the equations of free-surface flow in porous media. The goal is to provide accurate simulations of underground water-tables.
Pat's primary research interest is applied and computational mathematics, with emphasis on accurate, robust, and fast numerical algorithms. He does work in numerical grid generation and solution adaptive methods, and is co-author of the textbook "The Fundamentals of Grid Generation".
Pat has a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of New Mexico, a M.A. in mathematics from Washington State University, and a B.S. in physics from Montana State University. After receiving his M.A., he worked as a computational physicist with Physics International Co. in California and, while working on his Ph.D., he was a systems analyst with Kaman Sciences Corp. in Albuquerque.
"I have been a member of Ecodynamics for eight years and have worked in industry for seventeen years," he continues. "I obtained the position with Ecodynamics via having a respected entrepreneur from industry as a member of my Ph.D. committee. The job was offered to me upon completion of the thesis. In my line of work, one almost never proves theorems, but it is challenging dealing with the ambiguities posed by technical problems that arise in the industrial setting. "
"Mathematics plays an important role at Ecodynamics in that we are involved in generating numerical solutions to PDE's," he notes. "The best mathematical courses in my line of work are numerical methods for PDE's, numerical linear algebra, and high-performance computing. Any mathematics major considering a position in industry similar to mine will be at a disadvantage relative to the competition unless they have substantial supporting coursework in computing, engineering, statistics, and technical writing. A common myth is that a mathematicians high-level thinking skills will give him an edge over the engineers with whom he is competing for a job. Although such a skill can be useful at times, it is basically content knowledge of some application that employers are looking for. In the present economy, employers are generally not willing to train you, but expect you to have the content knowledge when you come in."
You may find more information about Pat on his homepage.
