Ridgway Scott, PhD

RidgwayScott

About the speaker

L. Ridgway Scott]  has been Professor of Computer Science and of Mathematics at the University of Chicago since 1998, and the Louis Block Professor since 2001. He obtained the B.S. from Tulane University in 1969 and the Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973.
Professor Scott was a founding member of the Advanced Computer Architecture Laboratory at University of Michigan, an early center for the study of parallel computing and a “beta-site” for one of the first-generation of hypercube computers, the nCUBE-1.
He also helped to establish a program in parallel scientific computing at the Pennsylvania State University, which became a “beta-site” for the second-generation Intel hypercube, the iPSC-2. He co-founded what later became the W.~G. Pritchard Fluid Mechanics Laboratory at Penn State.
At the University of Houston, Professor Scott continued his research on the finite element method as well as parallel computing. In addition, he initiated collaborations to develop enhanced computational techniques in structural biology. He was the Director of the Texas Center for Advanced Molecular Computation (1992–1998), an NSF Grand Challenge Application Group.
At the University of Chicago, Professor Scott is continuing his research in all of these areas. He was a Member of the Executive Committee of the ASCI Flash Center and is a founding member of the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics at the University of Chicago. He was a founding co-Director of the Argonne/Chicago Computation Institute which was established in spring, 1999. He was also the director of the University of Chicago partnership in the The National Partership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI) based at SCSC/UCSD.
Professor Scott has published over one hundred thirty papers, and three books, extending over biophysics, parallel computing and fundamental computational aspects of structural mechanics, fluid dynamics, nuclear engineering, and computational chemistry. This includes boundary element, finite difference, finite element and spectral techniques for solving partial differential equations.

L. Ridgway Scott has been Professor of Computer Science and of Mathematics at the University of Chicago since 1998, and the Louis Block Professor since 2001. He obtained the BSc from Tulane University in 1969 and the PhD degree in Mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973.

Professor Scott was a founding member of the Advanced Computer Architecture Laboratory at University of Michigan, an early center for the study of parallel computing and a “beta-site” for one of the first-generation of hypercube computers, the nCUBE-1. He also helped to establish a program in parallel scientific computing at the Pennsylvania State University, which became a “beta-site” for the second-generation Intel hypercube, the iPSC-2. He co-founded what later became the W. G. Pritchard Fluid Mechanics Laboratory at Penn State.

At the University of Houston, Professor Scott continued his research on the finite element method as well as parallel computing. In addition, he initiated collaborations to develop enhanced computational techniques in structural biology. He was the Director of the Texas Center for Advanced Molecular Computation (1992–1998), an NSF Grand Challenge Application Group.

At the University of Chicago, Professor Scott was a Member of the Executive Committee of the ASCI Flash Center and is a founding member of the Institute for Biophysical Dynamics. He was a founding co-Director of the Argonne/Chicago Computation Institute which was established in spring, 1999. He was also the director of the University of Chicago partnership in the The National Partership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (NPACI) based at SCSC/UCSD.

Dr Scott’s research is currently focused on:

  • automation of scientific software generation
  • understanding the digital nature of protein-ligand interaction
  • implicit solvent models of protein systems

Sample publications

  • Optimizing the evaluation of finite element matrices, R. C. Kirby, M. Knepley, A. Logg, and L. Ridgway Scott, SIAM J. Sci. Computing Vol. 27: 741–758 (2005) [doi:10.1137/040607824]
  • Dehydron: a structurally encoded signal for protein interaction, A. Fernandez and L. Ridgway Scott, Biophysical Journal Vol. 85: 1914–1928 [doi:10.1016/S0006-3495(03)74619-0]
  • Scientific Parallel Computing, L. Ridgway Scott, Terry Clark and Babak Bagheri, Princeton University Press, 2005.