Omar Ghattas

Dr. Omar Ghattas is a Professor and the Ernest & Virginia Cockrell Chair in Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, leading the Center for Computational Geosciences within ICES. He holds courtesy appointments in Computer Science, Biomedical Engineering, the Institute for Geophysics, and the Texas Advanced Computing Center. His research focuses on computational geosciences, inverse problems, and large-scale simulation of geophysical and biological systems. Prior to UT Austin, he was a professor at Carnegie Mellon University for 16 years, earning degrees from Duke University (BS, MS, PhD, 1984–1988).

• Education: BS, MS, PhD in Engineering from Duke University (1984–1988).
• Affiliations: Director of the KAUST-UT Austin Alliance, member of multiple editorial boards, and recipient of prestigious awards including the Gordon Bell Prize.

His research interests span computational geosciences, inverse problems, uncertainty quantification, and high-performance computing. Key areas include mantle convection modeling, seismic wave propagation, ice sheet dynamics, and subsurface flows. He has pioneered methods for large-scale inverse problems on supercomputers, addressing challenges in computational efficiency and statistical rigor.

Recent work emphasizes real-time Bayesian inference for disaster prediction (e.g., tsunamis) and advanced neural operator techniques for high-dimensional Bayesian inverse problems. His publications explore topics like derivative-informed neural operators, multifidelity sampling, and scalable computational frameworks for geophysical applications.

• Awards: Allen Newell Medal, Gordon Bell Prize, SIAM Fellowship, and multiple HPC awards.
• Grants & Leadership: Directorships of ICES research centers and international alliances, funded by NSF and DOE.

Labs/Teams: The Center for Computational Geosciences in ICES, collaborations with KAUST, and leadership in interdisciplinary computational science initiatives.