Xu Zhang

Xu Zhang is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Oklahoma State University, where he has been employed since 2019, initially as an Assistant Professor and promoted to Associate Professor in 2022. He is currently serving as the President of the SIAM Central States Section for 2024-2025. His academic journey includes a Golomb Visiting Assistant Professorship at Purdue University (2013-2016) and an Assistant Professor position at Mississippi State University (2016-2019).

Dr. Zhang's educational background includes:

• Ph.D. in Mathematics from Virginia Tech (2013)
• M.S. in Mathematics from Virginia Tech (2009)
• M.S. in Computational Mathematics from Sichuan University (2008)
• B.S. in Computational Mathematics from Sichuan University (2005)

Dr. Zhang's research focuses on numerical analysis and scientific computing, with particular emphasis on immersed finite element methods for interface problems. His work addresses both static and moving interface problems, developing innovative numerical techniques that avoid the need for body-fitting meshes. This research has significant applications in computational fluid dynamics, computational plasma physics, and other areas requiring simulations across material interfaces. He has developed methods including immersed finite element methods, partially penalized immersed finite element methods, and immersed weak Galerkin methods, with applications to Navier-Stokes equations, elasticity problems, and plasma-material interactions.

Dr. Zhang's scientific contributions have been recognized with several prestigious awards, including:

• Distinguished Early Career Faculty Award from Oklahoma State University (2023)
• Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Award from ORAU (2021)
• Holistic Science Prize from Oklahoma State University (2021)

Dr. Zhang has successfully secured multiple research grants from the National Science Foundation, including DMS-2110833 ($212,822, 2021-2024), DMS-2224003 ($20,000, 2022-2023), and DMS-1720425 ($125,042, 2017-2021). He has mentored several graduate students, including Ph.D. student Derrick Jones (graduated 2021, now at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab), Ph.D. student Fang Liu (2024-present), and Master's students Hoang Nam Tran (graduated 2024) and Madylan Rusinek (2022-present). He also supervises postdoctoral fellow Dr. Ahmed Zytoon (2024-present).

Dr. Zhang actively contributes to the academic community through conference organization, having organized multiple SIAM Central States Section meetings and other specialized workshops on numerical methods for interface problems. He serves on editorial boards for journals including Frontiers in Applied Mathematics and Statistics and has guest-edited special issues for several computational mathematics journals.