Matthew J. Zahr, assistant professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, has received a Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
The YIP Award was created to foster creative basic research in science and engineering, enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators and increase opportunities for researchers.
Fast and accurate computational simulations can substantially cut the design and evaluation time surrounding new technologies, including next-generation aircraft, engine technologies, and hypersonic weapons. As quick and as powerful as computers have become, optimization and uncertainty quantification of parametrized multiphysics systems remain computationally and economically challenging.
Zahr’s research project is entitled Adaptive, Data-driven Model reduction and Machine Learning to Enable High-Fidelity, Many-Query Computational Physics. It proposes a new numerical framework that is a hybrid between model reduction, which offers exceptional speed but lacks the robustness for complex problems, and traditional high-fidelity discretization methods for multiphysics systems. His hybrid framework and the associated software will enable fast, accurate, and robust high-fidelity physics simulations to facilitate for engineering design and scientific discovery.
Zahr received his M.S. and Ph.D. in computational and mathematical engineering in 2016 from Stanford University. He served as the Luis W. Alvarez Postdoctoral Fellow at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory until he joined the Notre Dame faculty in 2018.
— Nina Welding, College of Engineering