Omar Ghattas is the John A. and Katherine G. Jackson Chair in
Computational Geosciences and Professor of Geological Sciences and
Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin; Research
Professor in the Institute for Geophysics; Director of the Center for
Computational Geosciences in the Institute for Computational
Engineering and Sciences; Professor of Biomedical Engineering and
Computer Sciences (by courtesy); and Chief Applications Scientist for
Ranger, the NSF Track 2 supercomputer at the Texas Advanced Computing
Center. Prior to September 2005, he was a professor at Carnegie Mellon
University. He received his BS, MS, and PhD from Duke University in
1984, 1986, and 1988, respectively. He has been a visiting professor
at the Institute for Computer Applications in Science and Engineering
(ICASE) at NASA-Langley Research Center, the Center for Applied
Scientific Computing (CASC) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
and the Computer Science Research Institute (CSRI) at Sandia National
Laboratories.

Dr. Ghattas has general research interests in large-scale forward and
inverse modeling and simulation on parallel supercomputers. His
specific research focuses on optimization, parameter estimation, and
uncertainty quantification for problems in the geological, mechanical,
and biomedical engineering sciences. He received the 1998 Allen Newell
Medal for Research Excellence, the 2003 Gordon Bell Prize for Special
Accomplishment in Supercomputing, the 2004/2005 CMU College of
Engineering Outstanding Research Prize, and the SC2006 HPC Analytics
Challenge Award, with members of the Quake research project at
CMU. His paper on inverse wave propagation with former students
V. Akcelik and G. Biros received the SC2002 Best Technical Paper
award.