Dr. Suzanne M. Shontz
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Pennsylvania State University
Office: 343J IST Building
Phone/Voice Mail: (814) 865-0193
Fax: (814) 865-3176
Office Hours (Summer 2009): 
None; Send e-mail.

 		 E-mail address: shontz@cse.psu.edu
US mail address:
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
343J IST Building
University Park, PA 16802

Vita: [PDF] (Updated on 6/18/09.)

Biography

Suzanne Shontz received her Ph.D. in applied mathematics from Cornell University in 2005. She received her B.A. in mathematics and B.S. in chemistry from the University of Northern Iowa in 1999 and her M.S. degrees in computer science and applied mathematics from Cornell University in 2002. Prior to joining Penn State in August 2006, she was a postdoctoral associate in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and a Minnesota Supercomputing Institute Research Scholar at the University of Minnesota.
Professor Shontz received a National Physical Science Consortium Fellowship from 1999-2004 and an Honorable Mention for the Alice T. Schafer Prize for Women in Mathematics in 1999. She has presented her research at several international and national venues. Selected recent presentations have included talks at the 2009 International Computational Science Conference, the 2009 SIAM Computational Science and Engineering Conference, the 2008 Internal Meshing Roundtable Conference, the 2008 Second Fields-MITACS Industrial Problem-Solving Workshop, the 2008 Ninth International Workshop on State-of-the-Art in Parallel and Scientific Computing, the 2008 SIAM Optimization Conference, and the 2008 SIAM Conference on Parallel Processing for Scientific Computing.

Research

Professor Shontz's research interests lie in the area of parallel scientific computing. In particular, her research focuses on the development of unstructured meshing and numerical optimization algorithms and their applications to computational medicine and computational materials science.

Recent projects have included the development of efficient mesh optimization algorithms, the generation of meshes for biological computational fluid dynamics simulations, and the development of mesh warping algorithms for cardiology and elasticity applications. Other recent projects have involved the development of efficient geometry optimization methods for electronic structure calculations and the use of approximation models in parallel nonlinear optimization.

Current projects are described below.

Current Research Projects, Recent Publications and Presentations  
  • Mesh Smoothing Algorithms
  • Meshing and Linear Solvers
  • Modeling and Numerical Algorithms for Computer Systems
  • Computational Modeling of Blood Flow in Diseased Patients
  • Meshing for Computer Graphics
  • Publications
  • Presentations

    • Research Group and Collaborators

  • Jibum Kim (Ph.D. Student)
  • Shankar Prasad Sastry (Ph.D. Student)
  • Nicholas Voshell (Ph.D. Student)
  • JeongHyung Park (M.S. Student)
  • Kyle Wray (B.S. Student)
  • Shontz is a member of the Scalable Scientific Computing Laboratory .
  • Current collaborators at Penn State:   Sanjukta Bhowmick, Anirban Chatterjee, Mahmut Kandemir, Emre Kultursay, Padma Raghavan, Frank Lynch, Keefe Manning, and Rick Medvitz.
  • Current collaborators at other institutions:   Steve Vavasis (University of Waterloo),   Yousef Saad (University of Minnesota),   James Chelikowsky (University of Texas at Austin),   Michael Singer (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory),   Patrick Knupp (SNL-NM),   Lori Diachin (LLNL),   Todd Munson (ANL),   Patricia Hough (SNL-CA),   and Victoria Howle (Texas Tech University).
  • I've also been fortunate to collaborate with many talented individuals at the Fields-MITACS Industrial Problem-Solving Workshop in 2006 and 2008. See my presentations list to view my coauthors on the presentations.
  • Click here for links to related institutes, research groups and conferences.
    •  

    Teaching

    Fall 2006
  • CSE/Math 451 Numerical Computations (2 sections). Course website in ANGEL. Send e-mail to obtain password.

    • Spring 2007
  • No teaching assignment.

    • Fall 2007

  • CSE/Math 451 Numerical Computations. Course website in ANGEL. Send e-mail to obtain password.

    • Spring 2008

  • CSE 598C Advanced Topics in Meshing (course ad). Course website in ANGEL. Send e-mail to obtain password.

    • Fall 2008

  • CSE/Math 555 Numerical Optimization (course ad). Course website in ANGEL. Send e-mail to obtain password.

    • Spring 2009

  • CMPSC (formerly CSE)/Math 451 Numerical Computations, 2 sections. Course website in ANGEL. Send e-mail to obtain password.

    • Future Teaching Assignments (TENTATIVE):

    Fall 2009

  • CMPSC (formerly CSE)/Math 451 Numerical Computations, 2 sections (MWF 11:15am-12:05pm and 12:20-1:10pm, 109 Boucke Building)

    • Spring 2010

  • CSE 598 in Meshing (Wednesdays, 2:30-5:30pm, 223B IST Building)

    • Some Recent Professional Activities

    Conference Committees
  • 2009 Program Committee, 18th International Meshing Roundtable.
  • 2009 Member, Professional Development Committee, SIAM Annual Meeting.
  • 2009 Doctoral Showcase Committee, Supercomputing Conference.
  • 2009 Penn State Medical Informatics Retreat Committee.
  • 2007 Posters Committee, Supercomputing Conference
  • 2006 Member, Grace Hopper Conference Committee on Presentations, Panels, and Workshops
    •      
    Workshops
  • 2008 Invited Academic Expert, Fields-MITACS Industrial Problem-Solving Workshop
  • 2006 Invited Academic Expert, Fields-MITACS Industrial Problem-Solving Workshop
  • 2006 Editor of the National Research Council (NRC) Group report for the Fields-MITACS Industrial Problem-Solving Workshop
    • Refereeing
    Journals:
  • SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing
  • ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software
  • Engineering with Computers
  • Journal of Computational Physics
  • Computer Physics Communications
  • Computational Materials Science
  • Journal of Chemical Physics
  • ACM Crossroads Magazine
    • Conferences:
  • International Meshing Roundtable Conference
  • International Conference on Parallel Processing
    • Panels:
  • National Science Foundation
  • Department of Defense
    • Other Service
  • 2007 Faculty Marshall, PSU Commencement
  • 2005- Mentor, Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) Mentor Network