Recent Advances and Challenges in Discontinuous Galerkin Methods and Related Approaches meeting was held at University of Minnesota (USA) between June 29 and July 1. It gathered together leading researchers of Galerkin Discontinuous methods (DG) area from different countries. The main goal of this workshop was to promote and exchange ideas, emphasizing the most recent advances in this area, both theoretical and applied and encouraging international collaboration.

The workshop, hosted by the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA), included plenary sessions by prominent scientists such as Bernardo Cockburn (University of Minnesota, USA), Chi-Wang Shu (Brown University, EE. UU.), Ricardo Nochetto (University of Maryland, EE. UU.), Jaime Peraire (MIT, EE. UU.), Clint Dawson (The University of Texas at Austin, EE. UU.), Francisco-Javier Sayas (University of Delaware, EE. UU.), Johnny Guzman (Brown University, EE.UU.), Jay Gopalakrishan, (Portland State University, USA), Donatella Marini (Università di Pavia, Italy) and Franco Brezzi (Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori, Italy). Manuel Solano, researcher of the Center for Research in Mathematical Engineering, CI²MA, Universidad de Concepción, was among the attendants. "The congress was dedicated to recognize the career of Bernardo Cockburn, who was my doctoral thesis director. We were over one hundred people, all of us related to him, about 25 of his former doctoral students, about 10 former postdoc and many other direct collaborators”, Solano explains.

The UdeC researcher comments on the permanent collaboration network between mathematicians from different countries and universities, with the example of others attendants to the conference: Ernesto Cáceres, who was an undergraduate student at CI²MA, under the direction of Gabriel Gatica, and is currently a Ph.D. student at Brown University with Johnny Guzmán (former postdoc of Bernardo Cockburn). "There is also the example of Manuel Sánchez, who did his undergraduate thesis work with Gabriel Gatica, then earned a Ph.D. degree from Brown University under the direction of Johnny and is currently postdoc working with Bernardo”, Solano says, and emphasizes that, based on several meetings he had at this conference, he has new research projects with new collaborators. “It was nice to see old friends. Most of them are now professors in different universities and are begining thier academic career. That is why they are interested in starting new collaborations”, he says. He also explained that during his visit to Minnesota, he had the chance to work with one of his collaborators, Weifeng Qiu, from City University of Hong Kong, who is thesis co-director of the Ph.D. student Patrick Vega; and also discus ideas with Jay Gopalakrishan, with whom he co-directs the Ph.D. student Felipe Vargas.

In addition, Manuel Solano was a postdoctoral researcher at University of Delaware, between 2012 and 2013, under the supervision of Peter Monk and they have been collaborating since then. “Peter has a project awarded last year, in which I have the role of external researcher, so I visit him at least once a year”, he explains about a research project that seeks to optimize the use of solar cells. Solano visited University of Delaware after his participation in the conference in Minnesota. “The first research work with Peter consisted of a problem in two dimensions and considered standard methods.  Now we are trying to work in 3D and consider a reduced basis approach. This will allow us to add to the model new components in order to simulate more complicated structures”, UdeC researcher says. Peter Monk is also a co-advisor of the Ph.D. student, Cinthya Rivas, together with Rodolfo Rodríguez and Manuel Solano.