Professor Dr. Farzad Ismail

Biography

Professor Dr. Farzad Ismail has been a faculty member at the School of Aerospace Engineering (USM) for almost 10 years. He graduated with distinction from the University of Michigan Ann Arbor (USA) with the following degrees: BSE Aerospace (1999), MS Aerospace (2000) and MS Mathematics (2004). In 2006, he obtained a dual PhD in Aerospace Engineering and Scientific Computing under Professor P.L. Roe having worked on CFD method developments for compressible flow aerodynamics. Between 2006-2008, Dr. Farzad worked as a CFD software developer for the Ship Hydrodynamics Group at the University of Iowa (USA) under a project funded by the Office of Naval Research. It was at Iowa where he learnt the state-of-the-art CFD code developments and HPC applications to be used as part “Simulation-Based Design” for the US Navy. Assoc. Professor Farzad is actively working on algorithm and theoretical research in CFD, currently focusing in developments of a radical computational approach which blends the finite element and finite volume methods known as Residual-Distribution (RD) methods. Being a person who believes in simplicity and balance in life, his philosophy for algorithm development is “simple and efficient solutions for complex problems”. He is known for his work in entropy-stable methods with over 100 citations for that one paper published in Journal of Computational Physics (2009), and remains among the very few Malaysian researchers to have published in the prestigious CFD journal. Dr. Farzad has also been involved in various consultancy projects with Malakoff, TNB-Research, Unimax, etc as part of contribution to the nation through his extensive knowledge and experience in CFD. Some of the works include CFD simulation of power plants or boilers with heat transfer and Fluid-Structure-Interaction (FSI) simulation of Sultan Abu Bakar Dam coupled with the its steel gates. In his alter ego life, Assoc. Professor Farzad enjoys fast cars and fast driving together with a good conversation about philosophy, books, sports, history and religion.