Ammar Hakim: Curriculum Vitae¶
Highlights: I am an expert in computational mathematics, specially as applied to plasma physics, fluid dynamics, plasma and fluid turbulence and electromagnetism. I have extensive experience developing large-scale (100K+ lines of code) parallel computational software. My recent interests are in applying state-of-art finite-element and discontinuous Galerkin schemes to solution of the gyrokinetic equations. These equations evolve in 5-dimensional phase space in complex geometries, which makes developing efficient schemes very challenging. My long term goal is to develop mathematically well founded numerical methods to solve a broad variety of physics problems.
Student Advising and Mentoring At Princeton University I am jointly supervising (along with Greg Hammett) Eric Shi, a PhD student in the Department of Astrophysical Sciences for his research on discontinuous Galerkin algorithms for kinetic simulations of plasmas.
In addition, I have mentored a summer National Undergraduate Fellowship (NUF) student from Rice University (James Juno, 2013) and continue to jointly supervise his senior year project on developing a solver for Fokker-Planck equation for use in radiation belt modeling.
Prior to Princeton I have mentored several PhD students from University of Washington (Bhuvana Srinivasan, Andre Susanto, Robert Lilly), University of Colorado at Boulder (Mahmood Miah), and University of Wisconsin (E. Alec Johnson).
Research and Professional Experience¶
Associate Research Physicist, Princeton University, Plasma Physics Laboratory, (Jan 2012-present)¶
- My primary responsibility at Princeton is to develop high-order algorithms for the solution of gyrokinetic equations for tokamak edge simulations. I am also working on understanding the basic formulation of gyrokinetic theory.
- I have worked on developing novel closure relations for fluid simulations and am applying them to studying fast magnetic reconnection.
Research Scientist, Tech-X Corporation, Boulder Colorado, (April 2006-Dec 2011)¶
- Developed finite-volume and discontinuous Galerkin finite-element algorithms for the solution of Maxwell equations of electromagnetism, viscous fluid flow equations including chemical reactions and two-fluid plasma equations.
- Created a new C++ library to represent unstructured meshes. Library uses extensive C++ templates to allow use of mixed elements (triangles, quadrilaterals, hexahedra, pyramids and tetrahedra). A powerful sequencing mechanism was implemented for iteration over mesh in a dimensionally and element independent manner.
- Lead developer of U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) Scientific Discovery though Advanced Computing (SciDAC) project FACETS, a project to perform full-scale reactor modeling for the U.S. fusion energy program. Press release at http://www.scidac.gov/fusion/fullscale.html. Project website https://facetsproject.org. Wrote core parallel C++/MPI framework and performed first simulations in collaboration with experimentalists.
- Wrote proposals and won grants from Department of Defense and Department of Energy for computational physics projects.
Research Associate, University of Washington, Seattle (2001-2006)¶
- Developed fluid algorithms for the solution of two-fluid plasma equations and applied them to FRC formation and study of Lower-Hybrid Drift Instability in slab geometries.
- Developed solvers for the radiation transport equation in slabs. These were applied to study of inverse problems to determine the optical properties of ocean water from remote-sensing and in-situ measurements.
Education and Training¶
- Doctor of Philosophy, University of Washington, March 2006.
- Master of Science, University of Washington, March 2002.
Bibliography¶
Peer-Reviewed Publications¶
- Thomas G Jenkins, Travis M Austin, David N Smithe, John Loverich, and Ammar H Hakim, “Time-domain simulation of nonlinear radiofrequency phenomena”, Physics of Plasmas, 20, 012116 (2013)
- A. H. Hakim, T.D. Rognlien, R.J. Groebner, J. Carlsson, J.R. Cary, S.E. Kruger, M. Miah, A. Pankin, A. Pletzer, S. Shasharina, S. Vadlamani, R. Cohen and T. Epperly. “Coupled Core-Edge Simulations of H-Mode Buildup Using the Fuson Application for Core-Edge Transport Simulations (FACETS) Code”, Physics of Plasmas, 19, 032505 (2012)
- B. Srinivasan, A. Hakim and U. Shumlak. “Numerical Methods for Two-Fluid Dispersive Fast MHD Phenomena”, Communications in Computational Physics, 10, Pg. 183-215, 2011.
- John Loverich, Ammar Hakim, Sudhakar Mahalingam, Peter Stoltz, Sean C.D. Zhou, Michael Keidar, M. Jandrapu, TaiSen Zhuang, Jason Cassibry and Richard Hatcher. “Simulation of labratory accretion disk and weakly ionized hypersonic flows using Nautilus”, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Paper number AIAA 2011-4012, 2011.
- Ammar H. Hakim and John Loverich. “Robust, positivity and divergence preserving code for multi-fluid, multi-species electromagnetics and plasma physics applications”, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Paper number AIAA 2011-4011, 2011.
- John Loverich, Ammar Hakim and Uri Shumlak. “A Discontinuous Galerkin Method for Ideal Two-Fluid Plasma Equations”, Communications in Computational Physics, 9 (2), Pg. 240-268, 2011.
- A H Hakim, J R Cary, J Candy, J Cobb, R H Cohen, T Epperly, D J Estep, S Krasheninnikov, A D Malony, D C McCune, L McInnes, A Pankin, S Balay, J A Carlsson, M R Fahey, R J Groebner, S E Kruger, M Miah, A Pletzer, S Shasharina, S Vadlamani, D Wade-Stein, T D Rognlien, A Morris, S Shende, G W Hammett, K Indireshkumar, A Yu Pigarov, H Zhang. “Coupled whole device simulations of plasma transport in tokamaks with the FACETS code”, Accepted for publication in SciDAC 2010: J. Physics: Conf. Series, 2010.
- John Loverich, Ammar Hakim. “Two-Dimensional Modeling of Ideal Merging Plasma Jets”, Journal of Fusion Energy, 29 (6), Pg. 532-539, 2010.
- John R. Cary, Ammar Hakim, Mahmood Miah, Scott Kruger, Alexander Pletzer, Svetlana Shasharina, Srinath Vadlamani, Alexei Pankin, Ronald Cohen, Tom Epperly, Tom Rognlien, Richard Groebner, Satish Balay, Lois McInnes, Hong Zhang, “FACETS - a Framework for Parallel Coupling of Fusion Components”, The 18th Euromicro International Conference on Parallel, Distributed and Network-Based Computing. Pisa, Italy. 2010.
- B. Srinivasan, U. Shumlak and A. Hakim, “Comparisons and Applications of Two-Fluid Plasma Algorithms”, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Paper number AIAA 2008-3787, 2008.
- Peter H. Stoltz, Brian Granger, Ammar Hakim, Scott W. Sides and Seth A. Veitzer, “Effects of Sputtering of and Radiation by Aluminum on Magnetized Target Fusion Plasmas”, Journal of Fusion Energy, 27 (1-2), 2008. Pages 119-122.
- Ammar H. Hakim, “Extended MHD Modelling with the Ten-Moment Equations”, Journal of Fusion Energy, 27 (1-2), 2008.
- A. Hakim, U. Shumlak, “Two-fluid physics and field-reversed configurations”, Physics of Plasmas, 14, 055911, 2007.
- A. Hakim, J. Loverich, U. Shumlak, “A high resolution wave propagation scheme for ideal Two-Fluid plasma equations”, Journal of Computational Physics, 219, 2006.
- Ammar H. Hakim, Brian D. Piening, and Norman J. McCormick, “Near-asymptotic angle dependence of ocean optical radiance”, Applied Optics, 43 (31), 2004.
- Ammar H. Hakim and Norman J. McCormick, “Ocean optics estimation for absorption, backscattering, and phase function parameters”, Applied Optics, 42 (6), 2003.
Invited Talks/Contributions (2012-2013)¶
- “Aspects of Discontinuous Galerkin Schemes for Fluid and Kinetic Simulations of Plasmas”, Institute for Computational Science and Engineering Seminar, University of Texas at Austin, April 2013. PDF of talk
- “Hybrid Discontinuous/Continuous Galerkin Algorithms for (Gyro) Kinetic Simulations of Plasmas”, Institute of Fusion Studies Seminar, University of Texas at Austin, April 2013. PDF of talk
- “Discontinuous Galerkin Schemes for the (Gyro) Kinetic Simulations of Plasmas”, SIAM Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) conference, Boston, 2013.
- “Finite-Volume and Discontinuous Galerkin Algorithms for Multifluid Simulations of Plasmas”, SIAM Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) conference, Boston, 2013.
- “An overview of discontinuous Galerkin algorithms with applications to (gyro) kinetic simulations of plasmas”, Theory Seminar, Princeton Plasmas Physics Laboratory, December 2012. PDF of talk
- “Integrated Fusion Simulations of Core-Edge-Wall Thermal and Particle Transport Using the FACETS Code”, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Fusion Energy Science Conference, San Deigo, 2012.
Funded Projects¶
- “Plasma Jet Modeling for MIF”, Department of Energy, Phase II Small Business Innovative Research Grant, Investigator (2010).
- “Extending BOUT++ for solution of edge plasma equations for use in whole device simulation of tokamaks”, Department of Energy, Small Business Innovative Research Grant, Principal Investigator (2010).
- “Optimization of Dense Plasma Focus device for production of short neutron pulses”, Department of Defence, Small Business Innovative Research Grant, Principal Investigator for Tech-X subcontract (2009).
- “Three-Dimensional Fast-Multipole Solvers For Magnetic Fields For Use In High-Current Pulsed Power Application Systems”, Department of Defence, Small Business Innovative Research Grant, Principal Investigator (2009).
- “High-Order Computational Electromagnetic Schemes for Accelerator Structure Modelling”, Department of Energy, Small Business Innovative Research Grant, Principal Investigator (2008).