December 10, 2021

"Staatspreis" for outstanding PhD thesis work for Maximilian Bernkopf

On December 7, 2021, Maximilian Bernkopf received one of 40 Awards of Excellence ("Staatspreis für die besten Dissertationen") of the Austrian Ministry of Education for his PhD work on "Finite Element Analysis of the Heterogeneous Helmholtz Equation and Least Squares Methods" (supervised by Prof. Jens M. Melenk).

The Helmholtz equation is a basic equation in the modelling of wave propagation phenomena and as such fundamental for the understanding of the behavior of acoustic or electromagnetic waves. The heterogeneous Helmholtz equation takes into account that inhomogeneous media feature spatially varying wave speed. In his thesis, Maximilian Bernkopf mathematically proved for the heterogeneous Helmholtz equation in high-frequency case that high order approximation methods are to be preferred over low-order methods for reliable numerical results.

Maximilian Bernkopf received his BSc and MSc from TU Wien in the field of Financial and Actuarial Mathematics prior to entering the FWF-funded doctoral school Dissipation and Dispersion in Nonlinear PDEs at TU Wien. As a PhD student he spent 3 months each at the universities of Zurich and Valenciennes to do mathematical research.

Congratulations to Maximilian Bernkopf on winning this award!

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