Starting this semester, the Center for Research in Mathematical Engineering (CI²MA) at the University of Concepción (UdeC) has three new members.

They are faculty members from the Department of Mathematical Engineering in the School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences: Jorge Aguayo Araneda, Fernando Roldán Contreras, and Nicolás Sanhueza Matamala, who were invited to join by the Center’s director, Rodolfo Araya Durán.

“The addition of these three young and productive academics is a very important moment for our center. We are confident that their arrival will serve to expand CI²MA’s scientific reach, both nationally and internationally,” commented the director.

Jorge Aguayo Araneda is a civil and mathematical engineer from the University of Concepción (UdeC), holds a Doctor of Engineering degree with a specialization in Mathematical Modeling from the University of Chile, and a PhD from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He specializes in Numerical Analysis of Partial Differential Equations, Inverse Problems and Control of Partial Differential Equations, Finite Element Methods in Engineering Sciences, and Parameter Identification in Science and Engineering Problems.

Fernando Roldán Contreras is a mathematical civil engineer and holds a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the Federico Santa María Technical University; he specializes in Analysis and Optimization in the fundamental sciences, and in Numerical Methods in Optimization and Applications to Image Processing in the field of applied sciences.

Nicolás Sanhueza Matamala is a mathematical civil engineer from the University of Chile and holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom; he specializes in graph theory, combinatorics, and discrete mathematics in fundamental sciences, as well as in computational theory as it relates to applied sciences.

Regarding the invitation from the Center’s director, Sanhueza commented that “I was told that joining the center involved few responsibilities and offered some potential benefits, such as being able to use some of CI²MA’s physical facilities. My hope is that this can be utilized together with my visiting collaborators or thesis students.”

Regarding his interest in joining, Roldán noted that CI²MA is “a highly prestigious research center; its researchers are internationally recognized, so being part of it is rewarding. I hope to contribute through my research and that this center continues to be recognized nationally and internationally, also excelling in other areas such as optimization.”

“I completed my postdoctoral research at the Center for Mathematical Modeling,” explained Aguayo, “under the supervision of Professor Rodolfo Araya, with whom I had previously worked on my thesis, on a challenging topic for both of us: understanding, from both theoretical and numerical perspectives, how to model the deformations in tectonic plates caused by a subduction earthquake and how to infer these changes from limited data. Thus, numerical analysis was combined with the study of inverse problems. The good synergy between the CMM and CI²MA drew me to CI²MA, but I needed a faculty position, which I obtained at the University of Concepción a few months ago. Now I collaborate with Rodolfo and hope to continue collaborating with more researchers, so my joining CI²MA was a very natural step.”

“Joining CI²MA is an honor and a privilege,” emphasized Aguayo, “it is a great showcase for presenting my work and fostering new collaborations, as well as a fertile ground for training new professionals and researchers dedicated to applied mathematics. Furthermore, being affiliated with the CMM allows me to build a deeper research network with the community focused on inverse problems and the control of partial differential equations, which has been developing in Chile over the past few years. Bringing the UdeC and CI²MA into this network is also important for strengthening our research and future applications to increasingly realistic problems.”

“One of my goals is to generate more synergies between research in applied mathematics and its applications to scientific problems that can have an impact on society, whether to improve people’s quality of life, prevent diseases, predict natural disasters, or in other areas,” stated Aguayo.

“Recently,” he added, “I was awarded a Fondecyt Research Initiation grant, so I will continue to study various numerical and theoretical techniques for inverse problems and optimal control in elliptic equations. My personal goal is to consolidate this line of research at CI²MA, as well as to supervise undergraduate theses and graduate dissertations in this area”.