PIMS-SFU Undergraduate Summer School: Scientific Computing on Curved Surfaces

The goal of the summer school is to take a small collection of highly motivated and talented undergraduate students from mathematics, applied mathematics, science and computer science who are interested in the fundamentals of modelling and practical computing of continuum processes on curved surfaces.

To start, we will review elementary differential equations and finite difference methods in the plane. Next, calculus on manifolds will be introduced. A method for solving PDEs on surfaces will be described, and the software presented in class. A variety of continuum models on curved surfaces will be presented. Students will be divided into work groups tasked with solving problems by building mathematical models and then applying and modifying our software.

Summer School Format

The course will be structured to focus on lectures in the morning and computing labs in the afternoons. Students will also be required to work together on assignments and on the research projects.