Mechanical and Civil Engineering Seminar

Mechanical and Civil Engineering Seminar Series

Title: "Multiscale Models for Sea Ice"

Abstract: Polar sea ice is a multiscale composite material with complex structure on length scales ranging over many orders of magnitude. A principal challenge in sea ice modeling and computation is how to use microstructural information to find effective or homogenized behavior relevant to large-scale mechanical, thermodynamic, and ecological models. From tiny brine inclusions to ice pack dynamics on oceanic scales, and from microbes to polar bears, we'll tour recent advances in modeling sea ice, its ecosystems, and related composite media. We'll encounter fractal geometry, percolation, random matrix theory, Anderson localization, mushy layers, anomalous diffusion, and even twisted bilayer graphene.

Bio: Ken Golden's main research interests are in mathematics of sea ice, composite materials, polar ecology, statistical physics, and remote sensing. He's been on nineteen polar expeditions to obtain data that inform sea ice models, and given over 500 invited lectures on six continents, including four presentations to the U.S. Congress. Golden has won awards for teaching, mentoring, and science communication. His research has been covered by media around the world, including profiles in Science, Scientific American, Physics Today, and the BBC. He is an Inaugural Fellow of the American Mathematical Society, a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, cited for "extraordinary interdisciplinary work on the mathematics of sea ice," a Fellow of the Electromagnetics Academy, and a Fellow of the Explorers Club, whose members have included Neil Armstrong and Jane Goodall.