Solving problems with computers
Petros Koumoutsakos, Professor of Computational Science at ETH Zurich, has been elected 78th member of the "Hall of Fame of the Digital Age" of the Zuse Institute Berlin and the Tagesspiegel.
The membership honors people who help shape the digital era. The first member was Konrad Zuse, who introduced the Z3, the first functioning computer, in 1941. He and the other members are role models for Koumoutsakos: "Many of them are and were European pioneers in their field of research".
Koumoutsakos, like many other members, works on "solving problems with computers and math". He focuses on fluid dynamics. He uses a computer to create flow models that are difficult to measure in reality: Blood flow in arteries, the growth of tumor cells or the movement of nanoparticles in water. The researcher supplements these computer models with real data that are then analyzed using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.