LLNL has named Will Pazner as Computation’s third Sidney Fernbach Postdoctoral Fellow in the Computing Sciences. This highly competitive fellowship is named after LLNL’s former Director of Computation and is awarded to exceptional candidates who demonstrate the potential for significant achievements in computational mathematics, computer science, data science, or scientific computing.

Pazner will be joining the Lab’s Center for Applied Scientific Computing (CASC) from the Division of Applied Mathematics at Brown University, where he had previously been appointed a National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellow. He is familiar with the Bay Area, having participated as a Doctoral Exchange Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley and interned as a student researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2015 and 2016.

Pazner’s primary research interests involve the development of efficient solvers for implicit time integration of finite element discretizations. One of his recent publications was awarded first place in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics student paper competition in computational fluid dynamics.

When accepting the appointment, there were many things that stood out as attractive to Pazner about LLNL and the Fernbach Fellowship. “There is a lot of freedom to pursue an independent research agenda and potential for many collaborations within CASC,” he said, noting that his research interests overlap with many of the scientists and projects currently being explored in CASC.

While at LLNL, he will work with mentor Tzanio Kolev in the Computational Mathematics Group where he hopes to research the development of efficient preconditioners for high-order discretizations.

Pazner recalls being introduced to computers at a young age. “I remember, when I was about 7 or 8, learning to take apart and put together a computer and picking up books in the library to learn more,” said Pazner. “Since then, I’ve always been interested.” That curiosity has driven him to continue pursuing research in the field of computational science. “I’m looking forward to joining the Lab and beginning my work in a great collaborative environment.”

—Isabel Futral