Scientific Computing, particularly Computational Design Optimization, combining computer simulation and numerical optimization. Typical applications: antennas, microwave devices, loudspeakers.
A main area of interest is Computational Design Optimization, in which numerical optimization algorithms are employed in the engineering design process. The most exciting problems concern large-scale conceptual design problems using thousands to millions of design variables, which is possible (only) by employing gradient-based algorithms combined with adjoint-based computations of design sensitivities. (The latter is analogous to the back-propagation concept used to train deep neural networks.) Mostly, the target is acoustic or electromagnetic devices: antennas, microwave devices, loudspeaker components.
I also pursue some work in the mathematical modeling of physical phenomena, analysis of the mathematical models, and in numerical methods for partial differential equations with emphasis on the equations of wave propagation and fluid mechanics. The main focus is on finite-element methods.
Other interests that I am not actively pursuing at the moment are flow control and unsteady fluid–structure interaction.