Education

University of California, Berkeley

2017–2022

PhD, Applied Science & Technology (GPA: 3.942/4.0)

Thesis: "High-Order Moment Methods for Thermal Radiative Transfer"

Advisors: Rachel Slaybaugh (UCB) and Terry Haut (LLNL)

Texas A&M University

2013–2017

BS, Nuclear Engineering with Minor in Applied Math, Magna Cum Laude (GPA: 3.868/4.0)

Experience

Scientist II

2024–present

Computational Physics and Methods Group (CAI-2)

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Nicholas C. Metropolis Postdoctoral Fellow

2022–2024

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Graduate Student Researcher

2017–2022

University of California, Berkeley

Undergraduate Researcher/Lab Technician

2014–2016

Fuel Cycle and Materials Laboratory (TAMU)

Skills

Programming

Languages: C/C++, Python, Julia
Platforms: Linux, OSX
Parallel Programming: MPI, HIP/CUDA, Kokkos, OpenMP, AMD ROCm profilers and tooling
Code Development: git, Make, CMake, Doxygen, Jira, Unix, Sublime Text
Software: MFEM, SuperLU, LAPACK, Hypre, Eigen, VisIt, Paraview, Mathematica, Metis, Igraph, Lua, pytorch
Hardware: I administrate a "home cluster"/file server

Deterministic Radiation Transport

Vast experience developing advanced discretization techniques and associated efficient linear solvers for low-order/diffusion systems relevant to transport
Acceleration techniques: diffusion synthetic acceleration, high-order low-order, Quasidiffusion, Second Moment Method
Efficient implementations including transport sweep, finite element assembly, diffusion solves on structured and (high-order) unstructured meshes and on CPU and GPU architectures

Thermal Radiative Transfer

Linearized techniques: preconditioners, Krylov, modifications for inexact sweeps (parallel block Jacobi, reflection, mesh cycles)
Nonlinear techniques: nonlinear elimination, nonlinear preconditioning, Picard iteration, high-order low-order
Time integration: backward Euler, Diagonally Implicit Runge-Kutta (DIRK), Implicit-Explicit (IMEX), implicit treatment of opacities

Software Engineering

Working in collaborative team environments on production and research codes
Design of software that effectively balances modularity, agility, maintainability, and performance

Miscellaneous

Excellent technical communicator

Research Interests

Use of high-order low-order techniques to reduce cost and improve accuracy in tightly coupled radiation-hydrodynamics simulations
Algorithm development for efficiently solving deterministic radiation transport on high performance computers such as El Capitan
Applications of artificial intelligence in scientific computing

Awards and Recognitions

Nicholas C. Metropolis Postdoctoral Fellowship — LANL

2022–2024
Sidney Fernbach Postdoctoral Fellowship (Finalist) — LLNL

2022
Applied Science & Technology Excellence in Research Award — UCB

2021
Department of Energy Computational Science Graduate Fellowship (DOE CSGF)

2018–2022
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Fellowship

2017
Alpha Nu Sigma National Honor Society Member

2015–2017
Bill R. Teer '55 Scholarship — TAMU Nuclear Engineering Dept.

2016–2017
Harold Joe Giroir Jr. Memorial Scholarship — TAMU Nuclear Engineering Dept.

2015–2016
Lechner Scholarship — TAMU

2013–2017

Coursework for Doctoral Degree in AS&T

Mechanical Engineering: ME 266B Spectral Methods for Fluid Dynamics; ME 262 Hydrodynamic Stability and Instability; ME 280A Introduction to the Finite Element Method; ME 280B Finite Element Methods in Nonlinear Continua

Nuclear Engineering: NE 250 Nuclear Reactor Theory; NE 255 Numerical Solution of Radiation Transport

Mathematics: Math 228A Numerical Solution of Partial Differential Equations; Math 228B Numerical Solution of Partial Differential Equations; Math 224A Mathematical Methods for the Physical Sciences

Computer Science: CS 294 Software Engineering for Scientific Computing; CS 267 Applications of Parallel Computers; CS 252 Graduate Computer Architecture

Samuel Olivier

Computational Scientist