Jan Hesthaven elected to Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters

Jan S. Hesthaven. Credit: Alain Herzog (EPFL)

Jan S. Hesthaven. Credit: Alain Herzog (EPFL)

Professor Jan S. Hesthaven at EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences has been elected as Foreign Member of the Royal Danish Academic of Sciences and Letters.

The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters is the Danish national academy of sciences, social sciences and humanities. Founded in 1742 it was created with the purpose “of strengthening the position of science and scholarship in Denmark, in particular promoting basic scientific research and interdisciplinary understanding.” The Academy fulfils its mission “through meetings, the publication of scientific papers, advisory activities, and communication, as well as by participating in international cooperation”.

The Academy currently numbers about 250 national members and about 250 international members who are prominent scientists across the humanities, social, and natural sciences. Every category forms a specific Class within the Academy, into which new members are elected.

The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters has now elected Professor Jan S. Hesthaven as a member of the Class of Natural Sciences. Hesthaven is Professor of Mathematics at EPFL’s School of Basic Sciences, where he holds the Chair of Computational Mathematics and Simulation Science. Since 2021, he is the Vice President for Academic Affairs at EPFL.

Professor Hesthaven’s research focuses on the development, analysis and application of high-order accurate computational methods for time-dependent partial differential equations, while he has also contributed substantially to the development of reduced order models and the application of neural networks and machine-learning techniques to problems in science and engineering.