Past Event: Oden Institute Distinguished Lecture in Scientific Machine Learning

Year of AI: Oden Institute Distinguished Lecture in Scientific Machine Learning

Alfio Quarteroni, Politecnico di Milano, Italy and EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland

Abstract

From problem setting to problem solving via scientific machine learning, a virtuous interplay between AI algorithms and physics-inspired numerical models.

Problem setting is a critical precursor to problem solving. It involves the art of formulating the right problem statement. The importance of this phase is underscored by the fact that without a well-defined problem, finding the right tools and techniques for problem solution becomes a cumbersome and often futile endeavor. This transition from problem setting to problem solving is integral to the larger paradigm of knowledge development. While AI tools have made tremendous strides in recent years, they remain dependent on the foundation laid by human intelligence. Scientific machine learning, which integrates data-driven machine learning algorithms with physics-based digital models, provides an ideal platform for the virtuous merging of problem setting and problem solving, facilitated by a profound domain knowledge.

In this presentation, these concepts will be illustrated in the context of a specific application, namely the development of a mathematical heart simulator for the comprehensive cardiac function

Biography

Alfio Quarteroni is Professor Emeritus at the Politecnico of Milan (Italy) and Professor Emeritus at EPFL (the Ecole Polytechnique Federale of Lausanne, Switzerland). He is the founder of MOX at Politecnico of Milan (2002) and its first director (2002-2022), and the founder and first director of MATHICSE at EPFL (2010-2015). He is a member of the Italian Academy of Science, the European Academy of Science, the Academy of Europe, the Lisbon Academy of Science, and the Italian Academy of Engineering and Technology, the Swiss Academy of Technology.

He is the author of 25 books, editor of 12 books, author of more than 400 papers published in international Scientific Journals and Conference Proceedings, member of the editorial board of 25 International Journals and Editor in Chief of two book series published by Springer.

He has been an invited or plenary speaker in more than 300 International Conferences, and plenary speaker at ICM (the International Congress of Mathematicians) in 2006 in Madrid.

Among his awards and honours are the NASA Group Achievement Award for the pioneering work in Computational Fluid Dynamics in 1992, the Ghislieri prize, 2013, the Feng Kang Lecture 2013 from the Chinese Academy of Science, the International Galileo Galilei prize for Sciences 2015, The Euler lecture in 2017, the ECCOMAS Euler Medal 2022, the ICIAM Lagrange Prize 2023.

He is the Recipient of two ERC Advanced Grants, Recipient of the Galileian Chair from the Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy , doctor Honoris Causa in Naval Engineering from University of Trieste, Italy, SIAM Fellow (first row), IACM (International Association of Computational Mechanics) Fellow, honorary member of ECMI. He has been a member of the Fields Medal Committee of 2022.

His research interests concern Mathematical Modelling, Numerical Analysis, Scientific Computing, and Application to fluid mechanics, geophysics, medicine, and the improvement of sports performance. His research Group at EPFL has contributed to the preliminary design of Solar Impulse, the Swiss long-range experimental solar-powered aircraft project; his research group at EPFL has carried out the mathematical simulation for the optimisation of performances of the Alinghi yacht, the winner of two editions (2003 and 2007) of the America’s Cup.