Assistant Professor
Contact Information: Email / Website
Office: 258 Williamson Hall
Education: Ph. D. Geophysics, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences/University of Potsdam, Germany, 2015
Areas of Interest / Research
- Computational Geodynamics
- Study of the Earth’s Deep Interior
- Open-Source Research Software Development
- High-Performance Computing
Dr. Rene Gassmoeller is a computational geodynamicist and works on understanding our solid Earth and other planets by developing computer models that describe their deformation history through time. Specifically, he focuses on the accuracy and reliability of the mathematical methods and software implementations that scientists use to create these models, and on implementing better models for the physical processes that occur in rocks on Earth. He has published articles on the interaction between mantle plumes and mid-ocean ridges, the influence of an evolving mineral grain size on the deformation in Earth’s mantle, the efficiency and accuracy of numerical methods, equations that better capture physical behavior, and best practices for developing scientific software.
He is also a software developer and acts as technical lead for the community organization Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics (CIG). He is one of the principal developers and maintainers of the free modeling software ASPECT (Advanced Solver for Planetary Evolution, Convection and Tectonics). He contributes to a number of different CIG software projects and acts as a reviewer for scientific software for the Journal of Open Source Software and other journals.
