Education & Professional Career

Since 1 July 2005, Ralf Hiptmair has been Full Professor of Mathematics at the Seminar for Applied Mathematics at the ETH Zurich. His field is the numerical solution of partial differential equations.

Ralf Hiptmair was born in Pfaffenhofen/Ilm (Germany) on May 10, 1967. He studied mathematics with secondary subject electrical engineering at the Munich Institute of Technology (TUM), where he graduated 1992. He was employed as researcher with the Bavarian Consortium for High Performance Computing (FORTWIHR) until 1995. Then he moved to the University of Augsburg, where in 1996 he finished a thesis on "Multilevel Preconditioning for Mixed Finite Elements in Three Dimensions" and earned his doctorate under Prof. Ronald H.W. Hoppe. In 1998 he left for Tuebingen to lead a group of young researchers in SFB 382 "Computational Physics". In 2002 he did his habilitation at the University of Tuebingen submitting a thesis on "Numerical Methods for Computational Electromagntism". Soon after he accepted a professor's position at the Institute of Applied Mathematics, University of Bonn. In the same year he was also named Associate Professor at the ETH Zurich. In 2007/2008 he spent half a year as visiting professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

His resaerch area is numerical methods for linear partial differential equations with emphasis on finite element methods and boundary element methods, and the design and analysis of efficient precondtioners. A focus of his research is on the design an analysis of mathematical models and numerical methods for the computation of electromagnetic fields. His recent work also covers shape calculus and deterministic numerical methods for kinetic equations.