Academicians I Met

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."
John Donne (English preacher-poet, 1572-1631)

Below are brief personal accounts of some of the academicians I have met. The list may have a certain bias for people who work on the "boundary integral equation method" or "boundary element method", as it is one of my main research areas during the last 20 years or so.

In general, the compilation of the list is done in a haphazard manner just as I start to remember the meetings I have had and also just as I manage to locate suitable webpages to link to. I had almost forgotten a few of the meetings mentioned below, especially those that happened more than 10 years ago, until I started to search through my memories of the various periods of time. Recently, as I started to recall my undergraduate years (in the early 1980s) at the University of Adelaide, more accounts on Adelaide people have been added.

This compilation is an ongoing effort. More accounts or additional details may be added later on. Please s end me a note if you have any comments or suggestions.

WT Ang
2 September 2005

I have just removed a few hyperlinks found to be no longer functioning. 28 March 2008

MH Aliabadi
KC Ang
JT Chen
DL Clements
M Dehghan

DJ Evans
HS Green
I Kang
E Lim
P Limcharoen
T Miloh

M Nasir
A Oliveira
RB Potts
JRM Radok
FJ Rizzo

A Salazar
P Scott
IV Singh
J Sladek
CL Tan
M Tanaka

JCF Telles
JO Watson
L Wrobel
Ch Zhang
JM Zhang

Ferri (MH) Aliabadi (University of London, UK) (pic2002) works on the boundary element method and fracture mechanics. He organizes the yearly BeTeq conferences. I could not remember exactly when we first communicated with each other. But I could recall that some time in 2001 he sent me an e-mail message in which he invited me to be a member of the scientific committee of BeTeq 2002. Later on, we met in Beijing (2002) and Granada (2003). [Back to List] Dec 2004

Casey (KC) Ang (National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore) studied Mathematical Sciences at the University of Adelaide in the early 1980s. I started my studies in Mathematical Sciences there one year earlier than he. Taking the same undergraduate course at the same school during nearly the same period of time (1981-1985), both of us have quite similar academic background. We got to know each other a bit better years later when we bumped into each other at the University of Adelaide in late 1992 (or possibly early 1993) when we went back there. In recent years, with our offices separated only by Nanyang Drive, Dr Ang and I have taken the opportunity to carry out some research work on the numerical solution of partial differential equations in physical and engineering sciences. [Back to List] Jun 2005

Jeng-Tzong Chen (Taiwan Ocean University, Taiwan) (pic2002) works on the boundary element method (with special interest in hypersingular integral formulation of problems with degenerate boundaries) and mesh-less methods. We first exchanged mails in 1999 over my paper to appear in a special issue on boundary element method in the Journal of the Chinese Institute of Engineers (he was one of the guest editors) and we met later on a few times during conferences. [Back to List] Dec 2004

David L. Clements (University of Adelaide, Australia) introduced to me the boundary element method and the idea of using Green's function for solving crack problems in my PhD work. When I was trying to identify a suitable project and a supervisor for my PhD studies at the University of Adelaide in 1985, I went to see Dr Clements and had a short discussion with him. I found him to be a highly approachable person. After the discussion, I slept over the matter for just a day and decided, "This is someone I can work with." We have collaborated with each other in research over a period of nearly 20 years now. [Back to List] Dec 2004

Mehdi Dehghan (Amirkabir University of Technology, Iran) was a graduate student at the Department of Applied Mathematics in the University of Adelaide in the early 1990s. I met him in 1992 during my visit to Adelaide. He was working on the finite-difference method for the numerical solution of the two-dimensional diffusion equation with non-local conditions. Some years later in 1997, when he was in the organizing committee of the 29th Iranian Mathematics Conference, he proposed to the Iranian Mathematical Society to invite me as one of the seven international speakers at the conference. His proposal was accepted and I found myself flying to Tehran in the spring of 1998. In Tehran, we were accommodated at the Enghelab Hotel and had our "kebab" dinner everyday in a rotating restaurant on top of the hotel! If I remembered correctly, I was told that the revolution that toppled the Shah government in the 1970s started at the street in front of the hotel and the word "enghelab" meant "revolution".To my surprise, I saw many Chinese and eastern European guests at the hotel. I was later informed the Chinese were mainly visiting technicians and engineers as Iran bought its airplanes from China. Visit to some shops revealed that Iran imported most of its electronic goods from Malaysia. The Iranians told me that they dubbed Malaysia the "Land of Electronics" (another surprise for me). After my visit to Tehran, I started looking at development of various boundary element procedures for solving the diffusion equation subject to non-classical conditions, such as specification of mass. [Back to List] Jan 2005

David J. Evans was the editor of International Journal of Computer Mathematics (IJCM) and an Emeritus Professor as well the founder of Parallelism, Algorithms and Architectures Research Centre at Loughborough University. I met him during the 29th Iranian Mathematics Conference at Amirkabir University of Technology in the spring of 1998. I remembered his lecture during the conference was on the "bow-tie" parallel algorithm for solving a system of linear algebraic equations. Guess what he was wearing when giving the lecture? [Back to List] Dec 2004 (I learnt of his passing away in 2005 from an announcement posted by the publisher of IJCM, Taylor & Francis.)

Herbert Sydney Green joined the University of Adelaide around the same time as Professor RB Potts. When I was taking his courses in mathematical physics (one of which was statistical mechanics) in 1983, he struck me as a singularly quiet person. The reason for this impression did not become clear to me until more than 20 years later when I read his memoir biography published by the Australian Academy of Science. When I was attending his lectures, I went to see him a few times to ask questions, but I was not observant enough to know that he was deaf. According to his biography, he started to lose his hearing when he was in his early twenties. In retrospect, I vaguely remembered that we communicated mainly through writing equations on a piece of paper when I was consulting him. At that time, I must have thought that this was natural for a subject like mathematical physics and did not suspect his deafness! Professor Green was a student of the physicist Max Born in the 1940s and was well known for his works on areas such as particle physics, statistical mechanics and quantum physics. [Back to List] Sept 2005

Ilwon Kang (Kyunghee University, South Korea) has co-authored a couple of papers with me on the complex variable boundary element method (CVBEM). At his invitation, I presented a seminar on the CVBEM in the Department of Mathematics at Kyunghee University on a cold winter day in 1999. We met a few times during my regular visits to Korea. [Back to List] Dec 2004

Eugene Lim (Yale University, USA) took a first year mathematics course which I conducted in 1992. My part of the course was for only half a semester. After my part was completed, I left the university with which I was affiliated at that time. I did not know Dr Lim then as there were over 100 students in the class. He looked me up some years later in 1998 (after a search over the internet) just before he left Malaysia for his PhD studies in USA. He is now a postdoctoral fellow in physics (astrophysics) at Yale. Or should I say that he has since ventured into space "greater" than the Euclidean one in which I still remain? [Back to List] Dec 2004

Preedeeporn Limcharoen (Mahidol University, Thailand) is a UK trained chemist who shows special interests in many areas of studies outside his field of expertise, one of which is pure mathematics. I met him through Dr JRM Radok during my visit to the University of Chulalongkorn in 1990. Although he was not officially involved in my visit, Dr Limcharoen was kind enough to show me various places around Bangkok as well as arrange for me a day visit to Mahidol University. [Back to List] Jan 2005

Touvia Miloh (Tel Aviv University, Israel) works on mechanics of imperfect interfaces, hydrodynamics, free surface flows and ocean engineering. I met him when he was visiting the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Adelaide in 1993. [Back to List] Jan 2005

M Nasir M Ibrahim (Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia) works on the application of the boundary element method to problems in petroleum engineering. I met him a few times at the BeTeq conferences: Beijing (2002) and Granada (2003). [Back to List] Jan 2005

Armando Oliveira (Universidade de Porto, Portugal) is interested in the development of new energy technologies. I met him during a conference in Athens, Greece, in 2004. In Athens, we were co-chairing a session on simulation and modeling of heat and mass transfer. [Back to List] Jan 2005

Renfrey Burnard Potts taught at the University of Adelaide for three or four decades until 1990. He was well known for his works on areas such as mathematical physics, operation research, road traffic modeling and difference equations. I just learnt of his passing away in August 2005. When I was an undergraduate student at the University of Adelaide in the 1980s, I took several of his mathematical courses in linear algebra, linear programming and optimizations, differential equations and mathematical methods. As students, we always looked forward to his next lecture. After over twenty years, I could still remember certain moments during his lectures. He always spoke in a loud voice and constantly engaged the attention of students in an energetic manner. [Back to List] Sept 2005

Rainer (JRM) Radok translated the famous book "Singular integral equations. Boundary problems of function theory and their application to mathematical physics" (by N. Muskhelishvili) from Russian into English. In 1990, when I visited Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Dr Radok was kind enough to take some time off to show me the Thai rural areas. I remembered him telling me that "life here is organic ..." when we stopped at one of the villages. He taught at Mahidol University (Thailand) for many years before he passed away in 2004. A 1999 report of the Computational Mathematics Group of the Australian Mathematical Society wrote, "Rainer Radok was something of a singular point in the evolution of Australian Applied Mathematics... His interests and influence have lived on and prospered in the Computational Mathematics Group ....." In the 1960s, Dr Radok was a professor of mathematics and oceanography in the University of Adelaide and Flinders University, before he moved to Thailand. In explaining why research should be undertaken based on the peculiar strengths and needs of a place, he told me that the reason he chose to set up an Australian oceanography research center was that Australia was one big island all surrounded by water. [Back to List] Dec 2004

Frank J. Rizzo (Iowa State University, USA) (Emeritus Professor) is well known for his 1967 paper on the boundary integral equation method for the numerical solution of two-dimensional elasticity problems. That paper was regarded as a "landmark paper" and awarded the ASME Warner Medal in 1993. I believe that it was out of his friendship with Dr David L. Clements that Dr Rizzo came to see me in my office one day when I was at Iowa State University (ISU) (USA) in 1988. I had cited his paper in my PhD thesis and knew at that time that he was at ISU but, perhaps being a fresh PhD graduate, I was a bit shy to approach him. He appeared to be a pleasant person and we talked briefly about works. At that time, there was a sudden surge in interest in hypersingular integral equations and their applications to crack problems. Dr. Rizzo told me about his work on hypersingular integral equations and also mentioned the possibility of applying quarternions for solving dynamic problems. After the conversation, I started my own modest attempts to formulate a few crack problems in terms of hypersingular integral equations. [Back to List] Dec 2004

Agustin Salazar (Universidad del Pais Vasco, Spain) is an experimentalist working on photothermal techniques. So far, we have not met in person. One morning in 2000, when I checked my e-mail account, I found a message from him. After he introduced himself, he requested me to calculate the thermoelastic fields due to various heat sources in anisotropic media for his experimental works, as he could not locate the required formulae in standard textbooks. I sat down to look at the simplest case of a plane heat source which could be solved in a straightforward manner. I was a bit reluctant to look at the more complicated cases of cylindrical and spherical heat sources. So, I sent him the solution for the plane source, saying that one may try to proceed in a similar manner to solve the more complicated cases. When I heard from him again, he tried to persuade me to take up the more complicated cases and offered me co-authorships of any resulting research papers reporting the experimental works. After determining the sincerity of his request, I decided to look at the two more complicated cases. We could solve the cylindrical case successfully. We could solve the spherical case only for certain anisotropic materials. But the solutions obtained were sufficient for the experimental works to proceed. [Back to List] Dec 2004

Paul Scott (University of Adelaide, Australia) (Emeritius Associate Professor) was most probably the first mathematician I came into contact with when I started my undergraduate education in mathematical sciences at the University of Adelaide in 1981. He was a very friendly and approachable lecturer. I had never seen him without a big smile on his face. Recently, when I was searching the worldwide web for sites on the history of mathematics, I came across one maintained by him. I decided to write to him. He gave me a reply which ended with a signature carrying the advice "Smile! It's free". This helped me to confirm that the reply was really from him! Dr Scott has a keen and genuine interest in the teaching of mathematics and the history of mathematics. My own little interest in the history of mathematics, particularly in reading historical biographies of mathematicians, started when I took his course in the history of mathematics. [Back to List] Sept 2005

Indra Vir Singh (Indian Institute of Technology, India), was a postdoctoral researcher in the Computer Aided Engineering Systems Laboratory at Shinshu University. I was on study leave for one month at the laboratory in May and June 2006. Working with Professor M Tanaka, Dr Singh had applied the element free Galerkin method to analyse heat transfer in carbon nanotube based composites. Dr Singh is now affiliated with the Indian Institute of Technology at Roorkee. [Back to List] August 2007

Jan Sladek (Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia) (pic2002) works on the boundary element method and mesh-less methods. I met him a few times during conferences on boundary element method and computational techniques: Beijing (2002), Granada (2003) and Singapore (2004). He is presently one of the editors-in-chief of "Building Research Journal" (BRJ) (a journal of the Slovak Academy of Sciences). A short while after our meeting in Singapore (2004), he requested me to submit an article for publication in BRJ. Happily, I complied with his request as it happened that I could easily find a piece of work suitable for publication in the journal. [Back to List] Mar 2005

Choon-Lai Tan (Carleton University, Canada) works on the boundary element method, fracture mechanics, numerical stress analysis and composites. I met him at BeTeq 2003 in Granada, Spain. [Back to List] Dec 2004

Masa Tanaka (Shinshu University, Japan) (pic2002) is an active participant of conferences on boundary element method and computational techniques. I met him during conferences in Rome (1997), Beijing (2002), Granada (2003) and Singapore (2004). Professor Tanaka works on the boundary element methods and meshless methods. In May 2006, I was on a short study leave at his Computer Aided Engineering Systems Laboratory. While there, I learnt of some recent works on the modelling of heat conduction in carbon nanotube based composites and started to look at an analytical model which may be applied to analyse axisymmetric heat conduction in a multi-material cylindrical solid containing a carbon nanotube. This eventually led to a joint paper with Professor Tanaka and Dr IV Singh. [Back to List] June 2006

Jose Claudio de Faria Telles (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) (pic2002) works on the boundary element method for solving structural problems. One of his contributions in this area is on the use of numerical Green's functions for solving crack problems. I met him on several ocassions during conferences in Rome (1997), Beijing (2002) and Granada (2003). In 2003, when I received an invitation to contribute a paper to a special issue on Green's functions in the Journal of Engineering Mathematics, I decided to return to one of the topics I had worked on when I was a PhD student, that is, to work on a problem in which the Green's function is applied to solve a crack problem. Following quite closely the approach used by Dr Telles, I started to derive a numerical Green's function for multiple interacting cracks in a general anisotropic body. I thought it might be a good idea to invite him as a collaborator. He accepted my invitation and our joint paper was published in the special issue in July 2004. [Back to List] Dec 2004

John O. Watson (University of New South Wales, Australia) works mainly on the development of boundary elements, e.g. isoparametric quadratic elements, infinite elements and cubic and singular elements for cracks. The first time I met him was in 1990 (or was it 1991?) at the engineering campus of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), then located near a small sleepy town called Tronoh (dubbed "Toronto" by USM students) that had its heyday as a tin mining center of Malaysia once upon the time. We met again more than 10 years later during a conference in modern vibrant Singapore in 2004. [Back to List] Jan 2005

Luiz Wrobel (Brunel University, UK) is one of the early researchers on the boundary element method. He has authored several books on the subject. He is currently the Deputy Head (Research) in the School of Engineering and Design at Brunel University. First time I met him was at Madrid airport when we were on the way to Granada to attend BeTeq2003 in July 2003. He appears to be a friendly and approachable person. [Back to List] Dec 2004

Chuanzeng Zhang (Universitat Siegen, Germany) (pic2002) works on integral formulation of problems in solid mechanics. He has also recently done some works on mesh-less methods. I came across some of his works in the 1990s but did not have the chance to meet him until 2002 in Beijing. Before Beijing, we had briefly exchanged e-mail messages with each other. [Back to List] Jan 2005

Jianming Zhang (Hunan University, China) works on mesh-less methods, particularly the boundary node method, and the fast multipole method for large scale engineering problems. He and I had many discussions on the mesh-less methods when I was visiting the Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) Systems Laboratory in the Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering at Shinshu University in May 2006. He was working as a postdoctoral fellow at Shinshu University before taking up an academic post at Hunan University. [Back to List] June 2006