Stephen Roberts

Stephen Roberts is a Professor at the Australian National University (ANU) in the College of Science, Department of Mathematics. He is the lead developer of the ANUGA open-source hydrodynamic modeling software, which simulates dam breaks, floods, and tsunamis for governments and engineers. Roberts has made significant contributions to computational mathematics, particularly in numerical methods for partial differential equations, sparse grid data fitting, and finite element approximations scaling to millions of data points.

• MSc, Flinders University (1980)
• PhD, University of California, Berkeley (1985)

His research interests include:

• Computational methods for shallow water wave equations
• Development of Python-based scientific computing frameworks
• Global sensitivity analysis and uncertainty quantification
• Adaptive mesh algorithms for fluid dynamics

Recent publications focus on energy-stable numerical schemes, multiscale flood simulation, and convergence analysis in sensitivity methods. Roberts actively collaborates with environmental agencies and has led major computational science education programs at ANU.

Stephen serves as Treasurer of the Computational Mathematics Group (ANZIAM) and leads projects in:

• Parallelization of hydrodynamic models
• CO2 leak detection via atmospheric measurements
• Optimization of sparse grid combinations

His work combines theoretical advancements with real-world applications in disaster risk reduction and climate policy.