Dr Alison Ramage

Reader

Mathematics and Statistics

Contact

Personal statement

Homepage : http://personal.strath.ac.uk/a.ramage/

My main expertise lies in numerical linear algebra, which is a vital component of scientific computation that impacts strongly on a wide range of disciplines in academia and in technology-based industries. Specifically, it involves the design and analysis of algorithms and software for the basic matrix operations which underpin most technical computing applications. My particular focus is on developing efficient solution methods for numerical models of partial differential equations,  wth a primary interest in preconditioning linear solvers.

Having graduated from the University of St Andrews, I completed a PhD at the University of Bristol (under the supervision of Dr A. Wathen) on preconditioning for Galerkin finite element equations, and I have worked on preconditioners and fast solvers for a large part of my career. My early work, beginning with postdoctoral research funded by EPSRC and Nuclear Electric plc, was primarily in the area of computational fluid dynamics, working on solving Navier-Stokes and convection-diffusion equations. My work has always been highly motivated by practical applications and since arriving at the University of Strathclyde I have continued that theme, with projects in, for example, modelling soil-structure interaction and tunnelling in geotechnical engineering, option pricing in financial mathematics and liquid crystal displays. This research has frequently involved working with industrial partners such as Oasys Ltd (the software house of Arup) and Hewlett-Packard. I have long-standing collaborations with researchers in the United States and Sweden, as well as ongoing projects with colleagues in academia and industry in the UK. This has been enabled in part by the award of Research Fellowships from the Leverhulme Trust (in 1999, to enable a sabbatical year spent working with Professor Howard Elman at the University of Maryland) and EPSRC (in 2005, a Springboard Fellowship with Hewlett-Packard for liquid crystal device modelling). I have also obtained several research grants to support PhD students and postdoctoral researchers.

More recently, I have also become interested in the application of linear algebra to modern challenges in data analysis. This led to the award of a second Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2017/18 to support a project to develop multilevel preconditioning for data assimilation problems in numerical weather forecasting. I plan to extend this research to other modern sensor networks in applications such as Future Cities.

Back to staff profile

Publications

A moving mesh method for modelling defects in nematic liquid crystals
MacDonald Craig S, MacKenzie John A, Ramage Alison
Journal of Computational Physics: X Vol 8 (2020)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcpx.2020.100065
A multilevel approach for computing the limited-memory Hessian and its inverse in variational data assimilation
Brown Kirsty L, Gejadze Igor, Ramage Alison
SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing Vol 38, pp. A2934-A2963 (2016)
https://doi.org/10.1137/15M1041407
Computational fluid dynamics for nematic liquid crystals
Ramage Alison, Sonnet Andre M
BIT Numerical Mathematics Vol 56, pp. 1-14 (2016)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10543-015-0586-5
Preconditioning for radial basis function partition of unity methods
Heryudono Alfa, Larsson Elisabeth, Ramage Alison, von Sydow Lina
Journal of Scientific Computing Vol 67, pp. 1089-1109 (2015)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10915-015-0120-6
Efficient moving mesh methods for Q-tensor models of nematic liquid crystals
MacDonald Craig S, MacKenzie John A, Ramage Alison, Newton Christopher J P
SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing Vol 37, pp. B215-B238 (2015)
https://doi.org/10.1137/130923683
A renormalized Newton method for liquid crystal director modeling
Gartland, Jr Eugene C, Ramage Alison
SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis Vol 53, pp. 251-278 (2015)
https://doi.org/10.1137/130942917

More publications

Back to staff profile

Professional Activities

Preconditioning 2026
Organiser
27/5/2026
New insights and future directions for discretised PDE solvers
Participant
27/6/2025
30th Biennial Conference on Numerical Analysis
Participant
24/6/2025
MAC-MIGS Summer School on Numerical Analysis of PDEs, Optimization and UQ
Keynote speaker
15/6/2025
Householder Symposium XXII
Member of programme committee
9/6/2025
SIAM Activity Group (SIAG) on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Nominating Committee (External organisation)
Member
6/2025

More professional activities

Projects

Research visit to University of Maryland
Ramage, Alison (Principal Investigator) Elman, Howard (Principal Investigator)
10-Jan-2023 - 11-Jan-2023
PVDAP Network
Ramage, Alison (Principal Investigator) Freitag, Melina (Researcher) Gurol, Selime (Researcher) Lawless, Amos (Researcher) Scott, Jennifer (Researcher) Tabeart, Jemima (Researcher)
01-Jan-2023 - 25-Jan-2025
Industrial Case Account - University of Strathclyde 2020 | Shahid, Tasnia
MacKenzie, John (Principal Investigator) Ramage, Alison (Co-investigator) Shahid, Tasnia (Research Co-investigator)
01-Jan-2020 - 01-Jan-2024
Preconditioning for Novel Data Assimilation Problems
Ramage, Alison (Principal Investigator)
01-Jan-2017 - 31-Jan-2019
Mathematical criminology and crime science
Ramage, Alison (Principal Investigator) Wilson, Stephen (Co-investigator)
Workshop at ICMS, Edinburgh
01-Jan-2017
Doctoral Training Partnership (DTA - University of Strathclyde) | Gilmour, Craig
Higham, Desmond (Principal Investigator) Ramage, Alison (Co-investigator) Gilmour, Craig (Research Co-investigator)
01-Jan-2014 - 28-Jan-2019

More projects

Back to staff profile

Contact

Dr Alison Ramage
Reader
Mathematics and Statistics

Email: a.ramage@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 548 3801