Mark Cross

University of Wales , UK

Computational Modelling of Multi-Physics and Multi-Scale Processes – Progress and Challenges

Born in London, Mark Cross graduated with a BSc (Hons) in Mathematics in 1969 followed by a PhD in Mathematical Modelling of Laser Physics Phenomena in 1972 both from Cardiff University, eventually followed by a DSc in Computational Modelling in 1990 from the University of Greenwich. After a short period teaching at South Bank University in London, he joined British Steel’s R&D organisation to lead the development of a mathematical modelling group. His time here was formative in that he was involved in the computational modelling of a variety of complex processes, the development of a range of numerical techniques and also numerical software. After 3 years at Sunderland University, a year in the US as a visiting professor at the Universities of Minnesota and California Berkeley, and a further year at the CFD software company CHAM, he joined the University of Greenwich in 1982.

Prof Cross was at Greenwich for over 20 years, initially as Professor of Computational Modelling, Head of the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computing, then University Director of Research and ultimately as Pro Vice Chancellor (i.e. Vice President). Whilst at Greenwich he initiated the Centre for Numerical Modelling and Process Analysis which now houses a large research programme on computational modelling and simulation. From the mid-1980s onwards his research interests increasingly involved what came to be known as multi-physics modelling. This involved the development of numerical methods and software technologies to facilitate coherent interaction amongst distinct phenomena, and strategies and tools to enable scalable simulation performance on parallel cluster performance computing systems.  He has led the development of the PHYSICA software, now a commercial multi-physics simulation technology, and since the mid-1980s has been the Editor of the archival journal Applied Mathematical Modelling , published by Elsevier. The co-author of over 350 publications and the supervisor of 40+ PhD candidates, he is now the Professor of Computational Modelling in the School of Engineering at the University of Wales Swansea.