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THE INSTITUTE FOR COMPUTATIONAL ENGINEERING AND SCIENCES | ICES

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Welcome to ICES

Near the end of the twentieth century, much of the industrialized world was becoming aware that the foundations of science and engineering were under rapid, dramatic, and irreversible change brought on by the advent of the computer. The steady increase in computer capabilities, the enormous expansion in the scope and sophistication that computational modeling and simulation provide places computation as the third pillar of scientific discovery and revolutionizes the way engineering is done. Computational engineering and science can impact virtually every aspect of human existence, the health, security, productivity, and competitiveness of the nation. But to understand and advance this new discipline, significant changes in the infrastructure common in traditional universities were necessary and an environment for interdisciplinary research that facilitated flow of faculty, students, and knowledge across conventional departmental barriers, had to be constructed. This was the motivation of creating unique academic and research programs at the University of Texas at Austin in computational and applied mathematics, computational engineering, and computational sciences.

The Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences was created at the University of Texas at Austin to provide the infrastructure and intellectual leadership for strong interdisciplinary programs in computational engineering and sciences. The Institute is now the home of nine research centers in computational engineering and computational science and four active research groups. It manages a distinguished PhD program in Computational and Applied Mathematics and a highly competitive postdoctoral fellowship program. Faculty from over seventeen academic departments and four schools and colleges participate in programs within ICES and over 80 faculty participate in the Computational and Applied Mathematics (CAM) academic program. The Institute hosts a unique visitors program, and since its inception in 1993, over 400 scholars specializing in various components of computational science and mathematics have visited the Institute and collaborated with Institute faculty, staff, and students on research projects of mutual interest.

The University’s initiatives in these areas were made possible by the generous support of the University and a private foundation for a period of over 15 years. Institute activities began in 1993 with the establishment of TICAM, the Texas Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics, which had at its core mathematics, engineering, and computer sciences, with some programs in the physical sciences. In 2003, investments of additional resources in the program were made and the scope was expanded to include chemistry and biochemistry, physics, biology, and the geological sciences, and the name of the Institute was changed to ICES, to reflect the broader scope.

The programs of the Institute, both research and academic, sit outside the traditional organizational structures of the Colleges. The broad policies under which the Institute operates are overseen by the ICES Policy Board, chaired by the Vice President for Research. The Deans of the associated colleges are members of the board. An outside Board of Visitors reviews the activities of the Institute annually and makes a report to the University President. Internally, the Institute Advisory Board advise the Director on day–to–day issues affecting operations and budget. The Institute roster now lists around 200 individuals: 84 faculty teach in the CAM Program, approximately 50 graduate students study in the CAM PhD Program, eight Postdoctral Fellows form the ICES Program, 30 research staff including additional postdoctoral fellows, and an administrative and technical staff of 20 work in the Institute.

This document describes ICES, its various centers, and the key programs which it manages. Welcome...

— Dr. J. Tinsley Oden