Congratulations!Heena Patel successfully defended her doctoral thesis

16 July 2024

Photo: Rodrigo Cifuentes Lobos

We are proud to announce the successful disputation of our SICSS member Heena Kiritbhai Patel.

Her dissertation “Multiscale Finite Element method application to Canopies in Earth System” was supervised by Prof. Dr. Jörn Behrens and Dr. Konrad Simon (both Universität Hamburg).

Heena extended the semi-Lagrangian multiscale finite element method for high advection in the advection-diffusion equation 2D model developed by Dr. Konrad Simon towards application by implementing a novel parameterization of single building geometries in the diffusion coefficient, which was never done before. Parameterization of the building was achieved using a linear distribution outside the structure with a maximum diffusion coefficient inside the building. The velocity is set to zero inside the building, grows exponentially in a small transition layer near the building to a preset profile in the horizontal direction, and grows logarithmically above the building in the vertical direction, as is expected for a boundary layer profile.

The canopy parametrization with Multiscale finite element methods is a way to take fine-scale subgrid-scale features like canopies to larger with the local fine mesh. These subgrid features like canopy are resolved locally and encoded in a modified basis function which then is taken to a larger scale, as it can be done in parallel this reduces computing time, which is the other way around in climate models with excessive computing time and inaccurate representation of subgrid structure. She also validates wind tunnel data with a high-resolution finite element method. Overall, she combines high-order numerical methods, high-performance computing, and subgrid-scale parameterization  in her research.

Heena was a member of the Department of Mathematics ("Numerical methods in geosciences" working group) at Universität Hamburg.

Her future plans?
She is working at Helmut-Schmidt University/Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg as research assistant/post-doc until 2025. Heena would like to fullfill her dream to work with Prof. Edriss Titi and Kenneth M. Golden on sea ice modeling in Antarctica.

More on Heena's work:

• Blog Research Article published in SIAM news 9 September 2022 for talk in SIAM Annual Meeting USA

  https://sinews.siam.org/Details-Page/multiscale-finite-element-method-for-urban-canopies-in-climate-models

• PhD code :

  The Github code is now available

  https://github.com/heena008/Diffusion-Equation-with-MsFEM.io and

  https://github.com/heena008/Advection-Diffusion_MsFEM.io