Michael Heath

Ph.D. Stanford University, 1978

Research Statement

Professor Heath's research interests are primarily in scientific computing and parallel computing, and the relationship between them. In scientific computing (also known as numerical analysis), his interests are mainly in numerical linear algebra and optimization. He is particularly interested in sparse matrix computations, such as direct methods for solving sparse systems of linear equations and least squares problems. Applications of his work have included large-scale problems in geodesy, finite element structural analysis, and simulation of rocket engines.

Professor Heath is interested in algorithms, languages, architectures, and software systems for parallel computing. Much of his work in this area has involved performance analysis and visualization of parallel programs. He developed a package called ParaGraph to visualize the behavior and performance of message-passing programs on distributed memory parallel computers.

Professor Heath is Director of the Computational Science and Engineering Program and the Center for Simulation of Advanced Rockets.