Gumerov Receives CMNS Distinguished Research Scientist Award

An expert in scientific computing at the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) was recently recognized for his longstanding research and scholarship involving multidimensional data, spatial audio, wave scattering, and more.

Nail Gumerov, a senior research scientist in UMIACS, was honored on April 30 with the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences’ Distinguished Research Scientist Award.

The annual award recognizes research excellence in the college as evidenced by the discovery of new knowledge. Criteria for receiving the award includes published work, invited talks, inventions, patents, and—where appropriate—the candidate’s track record of competitive research funding.

Gumerov came to UMIACS in 2000, and for much of his career at the University of Maryland has collaborated with Ramani Duraiswami, a professor of computer science with an appointment in UMIACS.

“Nail has an extremely clear understanding of mathematical physics, and of classical condensed matter physics,” Duraiswami says. “Using his approach, he often rederives the results of others, but also makes fundamental contributions in a diverse number of areas—numerical analysis, scientific computing, data structures, parallel computing and electromagnetics, to name but a few. He is one of the smartest people I have worked with in my career.”

One project that Gumerov and Duraiswami are working on is exploring innovative computational methods that can simulate the effect of low-frequency electromagnetic fields on human organs.

The research, funded by $1.2 million from the Army Research Laboratory, is combining mathematical approximations on macro-, micro- and nanoscale levels, scalable algorithms, and high-performance computing approaches in order to provide more detailed data using complex simulations.

In addition to his research with Duraiswami, Gumerov has worked closely with other faculty on the UMD campus, including Bill Dorland in physics (plasma physics research), Konstantinos Papadopoulos in astronomy and physics (space plasma research) and Gordon Leishman in aerospace engineering (rotorcraft research).

Gumerov has also advised 15 doctoral students and several postdocs during his time at UMD.

He received his Ph.D. in physics and mathematics in 1987 from Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Sc.D. (a degree higher in rank than the Ph.D. in Russia) in physics and mathematics from the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1992.