Katherine J. Evans (Kate Evans) Professional Home Page
Since June 2007, I've been an associate staff member in the Computational Earth Sciences Group at Oak Ridge National Laboratory . Most generally, my research interests involve methods development for fluid models, specifically implicit modeling of earth system models with a look toward future computational resources. See below for specific citations for the work described here.
Recently I have been implementing a fully implicit solver capability within a global atmospheric model, CAM-HOMME using Trilinos . Right now, this option is only applied to the shallow water test cases. HOMME is a spectral element discretization dycore option in the community atmosphere model (CAM), which is part of the CCSM. Among other things, this capability will provide a basis for parameter continuation calculations. There is still lots of work to do, so stay tuned.
I coordinate my division's seminar series , which allows me to meet lots of interesting colleagues. Check out the constantly updated website for list of speakers. If you are an interesting colleague, contact me or someone on the committee to set up a seminar. We serve good treats!
My background explains my current interests; I got a B.S. in Physics from Haverford College performing fracture mechanics experiments under Jerry Gollub. I have a Ph.D. from Georgia Tech in Atmospheric Science performing diagnostics of persistent large scale weather systems using potential vorticity under Rob Black, and I did a postdoc at Los Alamos National Laboratory in the Theoretical Division under Dana Knoll developing fully implicit methods for convection models with phase transition.
For nested iterative nonlinear solvers, the key to sucess hinges on the quality of the preconditioner. Specifically, an optimal preconditioner shifts the majority of work from the outer nonlinear and linear solvers to the cheaper preconditioner. The preconditioner can take on many forms, but has a common goal of maximizing efficiency while maintaining accuracy.
Pictures of Clouds both strange and classic (click to enlarge):
Definitely Clickable Websites:
NOAA's Visualization of Hurricanes
The first, the best, weather site.
David Keyes's fantastic collection of quotations
Best introduction to all things Knoxville, TN
Earth Science Picture of the Day (thanks for discovering, Wilbert)
Site of the Month (or when I get around to updating):
Thanks to our group assistant Cindy - we have found nirvana. Click on manic mode for a virtual experience of Bubblewrap.Selected Refereed articles:
Evans, K.J. and D.A. Knoll (2007). "Temporal accuracy of phase change convection simulations using the JFNK-SIMPLE algorithm." Int'l J. Num. Meth. Fluids. 55:637-655.Evans, K.J. and D.A. Knoll, and Michael Pernice (2007). "Enhanced algorithm efficiency for phase change convection using a multigrid preconditioner with a SIMPLE smoother." J. Comp. Phys. 223:121-126. DOI 10.1016/j.jcp.2006.09.003
Evans, K.J., D.A. Knoll, and Michael Pernice (2006). "Development of a 2-D algorithm to simulate convection and phase transition accurately." J. Comp. Phys. 219:404-417. DOI 10.1016/j.jcp.2006.03.025
Evans, K.J., and R.X. Black (2003). "Piecewise Tendency Diagnosis of Weather Regime Transitions." J. Atmos. Sci., 60:1941-1959. Black, R.X., and K.J. Evans, (1998). "The Statistics and Horizontal Structure of Anomalous Weather Regimes in the Community Climate Model." Mon. Wea. Rev. 126:841-859.Contact info:
Kate Evans
1 Bethel Valley Road
P.O. Box 2008, MS 6016
Bldg. 5600, C315
Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-6015
Phone: (865) 576-6517
Fax: (865) 576-5491
Email: evanskj at ornl dot gov
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