Sunday, July 28, 2013

What a Historic and Inspiring JRV Symposium

The highly anticipated Symposium, Four Decades of CFD: Looking Back and Moving Forward, took place in Westin San Diego on June 22-23, 2013, just before the AIAA summer conference. What a wonderful celebration of the careers of three CFD giants, Antony Jameson, Phil Roe and Bram van Leer (or JRV). The weather could not have been better; the place was breathtaking, and the people were terrific. Everything was "aligned" (天时,地利,人和) for a once-in-a-life-time CFD festival.

We had 20 of the world's top CFD researchers as invited speakers, in addition to the three honorees. The speakers came from  all over the world representing academia, industry and government institutions. A total of nearly 80 attendees came to the celebration. There were a total of four sessions, with three dedicated to each of the three honorees, and a panel discussion session, in which all three spoke. A reception concluded the first day, and a banquet was served on the second day.

True to the theme of the Symposium, the invited talks told stories of how some of the best-known CFD algorithms came into existence, and ventured bold predictions on where CFD might be heading. Simply put, the quality of the invited talks was amazing. At the banquet, former students and colleagues of JRV shared fond memories and stories, many told for the very first time, and the audience could not help bursting into laughs for extended periods of time. It was so much fun, as illustrated by some of the photos posted here.

In order to record history, all the talks will be posted here. I am also attaching several photos. In 30 years, we will all exclaim how young we looked in 2013 and how we managed to gather many of the rock-stars of CFD in one place!

Attendees of the JRV Symposium
A Joyous Moment with the NASA Caps, L-R: H.T. Huynh, Bram van Leer, Phil Roe, Antony Jameson and Z.J. Wang
The KU Gang and the Honorees