Dr. Timothy Alden Davis, a world leader in algorithmic research for sparse matrix computations, will be joining the faculty of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University in the fall. Davis will be teaching courses in sparse matrix algorithms and numerical analysis.
"I love to delve into the theory and algorithms of graph theoretic and applied mathematical algorithms, but I don't stop there. I just love to code. I collaborate with others with the same passion — and I hope to instill the same drive in my students (graduate and undergraduate)."
One of Davis' books, "MATLAB Primer, Eighth Edition," released in 2010, is a popular manual on MATLAB.
"MATLAB uses my sparse solvers in x=A\b, and Google relies on them to create Google Street View and Photo Tours."
In addition to the primer, he has written "Direct Methods for Sparse Linear Systems" and has published more than 60 papers and journal articles on mathematical software, numerical methods, sparse matrix algorithms, high performance computing, and parallel computing.
In recognition of his contributions to sparse matrix algorithms and software, Davis was named a Fellow of the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) in 2013. He also serves as a Master Consultant for The MathWorks, and as an NVIDIA Academic Partner. He is an associate editor of the ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software and the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing.
Based on Davis' GPU computing research, NVIDIA has designated Texas A&M University as a CUDA Research Center.
Transitioning from classroom and research lab, Davis releases his passion for computing by combining it with his interest in music and his hobby of creating art with math. The result is his fascinating NotesArt Studio. He was challenged to create this art by a London design studio for the 2013 London Electronic Arts Festival held last November. "I love an algorithmic challenge," says Davis, "and I had never done algorithmic art for music before. I was intrigued." His resulting artwork for the festival appeared on billboards around London last fall.
Davis comes to Texas A&M from the Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering at the University of Florida. He holds a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from Purdue and a doctoral degree in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.