Makoto Tsubokura

Makoto Tsubokura has been the professor of computational fluid dynamics at the Graduate School of System Informatics, Kobe University since 2015, and the leader of Complex Unified Simulation Research Team at the Center of Computational Science, RIKEN since 2012. After earning a PhD from the University of Tokyo in 1997, he first became a lecturer at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1999, then associate professor at the University of Electro-Communications in 2003, then at Hokkaido University in 2007, and then obtaining current positions.

He specializes in research and development of mathematical modeling and simulation algorithms for thermal fluids in turbulent state, and their expansion to massively parallel environment on high-end supercomputers. Up to now, he has achieved many research results utilizing Japan’s flagship supercomputers, the Earth Simulator, K computer, and supercomputer “Fugaku”, in collaboration with the automobile industry, heavy industry, and general construction industry.

Currently, he is focusing on the strongly coupling problems of thermo-fluid motions with structure deformation by utilizing massively parallel computer resources. For this purpose, he is developing a new simulation framework called “CUBE” based on the unified fluid/solid governing equations on the hierarchically structured mesh system as a data structure. This method is expected to promote the industrial use of high-end supercomputers represented by “Fugaku”. By coupling this High-Performance Computing framework with AI technology, he is trying to advocate “smart design” as an innovative Computer-Aided Engineering for industrial products.

Until now, he has published more than 60 research articles, 15 review papers at distinguished international journals, and more than 30 plenary/invited talks, 100 conference papers and 90 presentations at international conferences. He is a fellow of the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Japan Society of Fluid Mechanics, and Society of Automotive Engineers of Japan. He is selected as a member of the Engineering Academy of Japan.