Tarleton Profesor Delivers Conference Keynote
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, March 2, 2017
STEPHENVILLE, Texas—Tarleton State University professor of mathematics Dr. Bryant Wyatt will provide the keynote talk for today’s Research Council on Mathematics Learning 2017 Conference in Fort Worth.
His talk, Leveraging GPU Accelerated Computing to Restore Credibility to the Giant Impact Hypotheses, opens the conference, which runs through March 4. Also attending the conference are Tarleton faculty members Dr. Kathy Horak Smith, conference chair; Dr. Eileen Faulkenberry, program co-chair; and Michael Warren.
The giant-impact hypothesis is the dominant theory on how the Earth-Moon system was formed, but angular momentum concerns have cast a shadow on its validity, Wyatt noted. The presentation shows how the use of impactor spins preserves all the favorable aspects of previous computer simulations, and produces an Earth-Moon system with the correct angular momentum.
All the work is done on inexpensive NVIDIA GPUs, demonstrating how supercomputing and computational astrophysics have reached the masses.
Wyatt received his doctorate in applied mathematics from the University of Texas at Arlington. His dissertation—“Molecular Dynamic Simulation of Colliding Microdrops of Water”—along with his present work, are at the crossroads of mathematics, physics and computer science.
Wyatt’s work under Dr. Donald Greenspan required extensive programing of Cray supercomputers. These computers cost upward of $20-$40 million.
After, graduation he went to work for Esystems (now Raytheon) as a senior software engineer optimizing parallel image processing code. After working at Esystems, he joined Bell Helicopter in 1994 as a senior computer systems analyst.
Wyatt came to Tarleton in 2001. Lacking access to a supercomputer, he began work on reforming college algebra courses at Tarleton and learning to become a better teacher. In 2005, Wyatt and Dr. Bo Brawner worked with the Texas Educational Agency to create a training module on the Mathematics TEKS Reform (MTR) and presented this trainer-of-trainers module at educational service centers across the state.
In 2010, Wyatt became the head of the Mathematics Department and started Tarleton’s high performance computing lab. In the last seven years, Wyatt and his students have given more than 90 presentations all over the United States on particle modeling. Wyatt and his team have won numerous awards for their cutting-edge presentation.
Tarleton, a member of The Texas A&M University System, provides a student-focused, value-driven educational experience marked by academic innovation and exemplary service, and dedicated to transforming students into tomorrow’s professional leaders. With campuses in Stephenville, Fort Worth, Waco, Midlothian and online, Tarleton engages with its communities to provide real-world learning experiences and to address societal needs while maintaining its core values of integrity, leadership, tradition, civility, excellence and service.
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Contact: Dr. Bryant Wyatt
254-968-9530
wyatt@tarleton.edu
