Evan Lezar
PhD Student, Researcher
Profile
I am currently a PhD student at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, where I am a member of the Computational Electromagnetics Group at the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department. My research interests include modelling techniques such as the finite element method and the method of moments.
Research
I am currently investigating heterogeneous HPC methods in the field of computational electromagnetics. This includes the use of GPUs as low-cost accelerators for a wide range of problems resulting from the modelling of electromagnetic phenomena.
One of my current projects involves the use of CUDA by NVIDIA in solving eigenvalue problems that result from the analysis of waveguide and resonant cavity structures. In addition, I am investigating the CUDA acceleration of various aspects of the method of moments when solving radiation and scattering problems.
Future work includes a number of comparative benchmarks across various architectures and implementations such as those provided by both AMD and NVIDIA. To this end, a customisable benchmarking framework is being developed.
Education
PhD — Computational Electromagnetics
Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2008 — present
thesis title: Heterogeneous HPC Methods in Computational Electromagnetics
advisor: Prof D.B. Davidson
MScEng (cum laude) — Computational Electromagnetics
Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2006 — 2008
thesis title: hp-Adaptation for the FEM Analysis of Waveguides
advisor: Prof. D.B. Davidson
BEng (cum laude) — Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2004 — 2005
final year project title: Investigation of Score-Based Information Fusion Methods Applied to Speaker Verification
advisor: Prof. J.A. du Preez
BSc (cum laude) — Physics and Computer Science
Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa
2001 — 2003
Experience
Professional
Research contractor
EMSS-SA 
present
I am undertaking an investigation of GPU acceleration techniques for use in computational electromagnetic software.
Algorithm developer
EMSS-Consulting
part-time: 2008
I carried out an investigation of GPU acceleration and the optimisation of algorithms used in the IXUS software package.
Developer
Made to Measure Computer Systems
part-time: 2000 — 2005
I was involved in the development and testing of medical account software in Delphi under Microsoft Windows.
Academic
Project advisor
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Stellenbosch University
2009
Project 448: I proposed a final year research project and supervised the student responsible for completing the project.
Teaching assistant
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Stellenbosch University
2008
High frequency techniques 414: My responsibilities included the marking of tests and assisting with practicals for a final year course on wireless system design.
Junior lecturer
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Stellenbosch University
2006 — 2007
Computer science 252: I was responsible for teaching a second year course on computer architecture and assembler programming. This included the setting up and marking of theory and practical examinations as well as a year project.
Computer science bridging course: I was responsible for teaching a 1 week introductory computer science course for first year students that included lectures on computer architecture and algorithm design as well as practicals on the basics of programming in C.
Project
Google Summer of Code participant
K-3D
2008
I investigated the use of NVIDA CUDA to accelerate various K-3D plugins while working as a member of the development team for this open source project. Development was done in C/C++ and Python.
COMAP Mathematical Contest in Modelling
Department of Applied Mathematics, Stellenbosch University
2003
I was part of a three person team that participated in a contest to solve a predefined problem using mathematical modelling techniques. Received an honourable mention.
Publications
International Conferences
E. Lezar, and D.B. Davidson, GPU-based Arnoldi Factorisation for Accelerating Finite Element Eigenanalysis, Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Electromagnetics in Advanced Applications - ICEAA'09, Torino, Italy, September 2009.
E. Lezar, and D.B. Davidson, Accelerating Electromagnetic Field Calculations for Antenna Simulations Using Commodity Graphics Processing Units: A Feasibility Study, 1st African Conference on Computational Mechanics - AfriComp’09, Sun City, South Africa, January 2009.
E. Lezar, and D.B. Davidson, Implementation of Arbitrarily High Order Hierarchical Vector Basis Functions for the Finite Element Analysis of a Rectangular Waveguide, 8th IEEE AFRICON Conference - AFRICON'07, Windhoek, Namibia, September 2007.
Local Conferences
E. Lezar, and D.B. Davidson, GPU-Assisted ARPACK: Towards GPU-Accelerated Finite Element Waveguide Analysis, CHPC National Meeting and 5th BELIEF Symposium, Sandton, South Africa, December 2009.
Evan Lezar © 2009 — mail@evanlezar.com