One of EPFL’s more recent doctoral alumni came back to campus on 20th October to receive the 2008 IBM Research Prize in Computational Sciences. Alongside a financial award, Roland Bouffanais had the opportunity to discuss his work with the IBM Research team at the Zürich Research Lab.
Roland Bouffanais completed his degree with the Doctoral Program in Mechanics, under the supervision of Professors Michel Deville and Emanuel Leriche at the Laboratory of Computational Engineering. The IBM Research Prize jury considered Dr. Bouffanais’ thesis to be, in their words, “an outstanding dissertation” that marks “an important advancement in the investigation of free surface and turbulent incompressible flows.” His work brought major developments to the spectral element method applied to large eddy simulations and the computation of moving surfaces.
Now a postdoctoral fellow and associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Roland’s current research work deals with the modelling of biolocomotion of microorganisms (e.g. bacteria) and fishes, having biomimetic applications in engineering.
In the photo below, Professor Giorgio Margaritondo presents the IBM Research Prize to Roland Bouffanais, accompanied by Professor Wanda Andreoni of IBM Research Zürich.
