The Copper Mountain Conference alternates between Multigrid Methods (odd-numbered years) and Iterative Methods (even-numbered years). The Conferences are alternately held the last week in March or early April. The Copper Mountain Conference which began in 1983, represents an important forum for the exchange of ideas in these two closely related fields. The success of this conference series can be measured not only by its continuing popularity among practitioners over the past 26 years, but also by the tangible scientific contributions that have resulted. Specifically, three major scientific journals have devoted a total of eleven Special Issues to papers documenting the transactions of the conferences. More difficult to document, but readily discernable through anecdotal evidence are the numerous important scientific collaborations that have arisen out of planned and even chance encounters occurring at the conferences, and the many publications that have resulted from those alliances.

Mathematicians from all over the world attend the meetings. Because of the relaxed atmosphere and open, active discussions that it fosters, this collaborative environment is prevalent each year and is one of the reasons attendees come back each year.

Since 1990, the conferences have been organized and run by Front Range Scientific Computations, Inc., in cooperation with the University of Colorado and the Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM). Steve McCormick and Tom Manteuffel were co-chairs from the beginning of the series in 1983 until 2003.

From 2003 until 2007 the Copper Mountain Conferences on Multigrid Methods were organized jointly by Van Emden Henson (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) and Joel Dendy (Los Alamos National Laboratory). At the conclusion of the 2007 conference, Joel Dendy retired as co-chair of the Multigrid Conferences, and Irad Yavneh (Technion, Israel) and Ulrich Rude (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg) became joint Program Chairs.

Similarly, beginning in 2004 the Copper Mountain Conferences on Iterative Methods are organized jointly by Howard Elman (University of Maryland) and Panayot Vassilevski (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory). Beginning with the 2010 conference, Ray Tuminaro (Sandia National Laboratory) replaces Panayot Vassilevski as co-chair.

ORGANIZATION AND SPEAKERS

The meetings are planned for five days, following a basic structure that has proved successful throughout the Series. Morning and late afternoon sessions consist of individual talks of approximately ½ hour each. This structure accommodates about 60 talks in serial sessions which has been adequate for the Multigrid Method meetings, and about 120 talks in two parallel sessions for the Iterative Method meetings. As has been the tradition, the meetings have an egalitarian style with no invited talks, and student presentations are put on equal footing with all others.

The organizing committee recognizes the value to students the opportunity to meet and interact with experts in the field. Just as important, the committee recognizes the critical importance to the field of computational research that young scientists be engaged as early as possible in their careers. To enhance these effects, the meetings will continue to feature a Student Paper Competition. Students are invited to submit a 10-page paper describing original research due primarily to the student. A panel of judges made up of members of the Program Committee selects the winners. The Conference helps provide travel expenses for the student winners, including lodging expense and registration fees. In addition, the Conference provides lodging support and registration fees for a number of other students, women, and minorities on a case-by-case basis.

The timing of the meetings coincides closely with term breaks in many countries and there has been very strong participation from Europe and other international locations.

The Conferences have a long tradition of evening sessions that are devoted to panel discussions, workshops, and a circus. The circus provides a forum for participants to present their research on an ad hoc basis, allowing for late-breaking results and more informal discussions. The workshops and panel discussions are typically organized around specific themes, including the topics of special emphasis. Each member of the organizing committee is urged to speak and to arrange sessions, workshops, and panels on research that is of special interest to the community. A special effort is made to ensure that these sessions represent the most current developments and to encourage the participation of researchers from industry and government research laboratories whose work is focused on applications.

TUTORIALS

Beginning in 1999, because of the emerging critical need for new advances and new human resources in this field, we revived and updated the multigrid tutorials that were a staple of the early Conferences. Bill Briggs of CU-Denver reprised his presentation of A Multigrid Tutorial, which was first given at the 1987 Conference, and later written into Briggs’ highly popular book of the same title (published by SIAM). Also in 1999, Van Emden Henson (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) first presented a tutorial on algebraic multigrid, and Jim Jones (then of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) presented a tutorial on multigrid for parallel computers. Based on the success of these tutorials, the tutorial series was continued and expanded for succeeding Conferences. These tutorials have been well-attended, and have received very high praise from many conference attendees. As a result, it is our intention to continue the tutorial series, expanding and altering the content as the current needs of the research community dictate.

PRELIMINARY AND VIRTUAL PROCEEDINGS

Among the unusual features of this meeting series has been the preliminary proceedings and the virtual proceedings. Speakers have been asked to provide a page-limited abstract or paper describing their research in advance of the conference, and these abstracts and student papers have been bound and made available to the participants of the meeting upon their arrival. This has always provided useful information about each talk, generally much more than the traditional title and two-sentence abstract common to most conferences. Having more information available to participants at the Conference enhances the possibilities for interaction. In addition, one of the conference organizers, Craig Douglas (University of Wyoming), maintains “Virtual Proceedings” for each conference. This electronic repository contains abstracts, papers, preliminary results, test codes, and essentially any electronic communication any of the participants wish to submit.

In keeping with modern trends, the Copper Mountain Conference series will move to the creation and distribution of the preliminary proceedings on a CD, rather than paper. Almost all attendees bring laptops, and placing the extended abstracts and student papers on a CD, where they can have embedded links to further information on the internet would be a very convenient feature. The Conference is held in a venue having wireless internet available, making this a feasible plan for upcoming conferences.

SPECIAL JOURNAL ISSUE

Each speaker is invited to submit a paper to a special issue of a major scientific journal. Special Issues of Electronic Transactions in Numerical Analysis (ETNA) were devoted to the 1997, 1999 and 2001 Multigrid Conferences. The 2003, 2005 , 2007 and 2009 Multigrid Conferences resulted in special issues of Numerical Linear Algebra with Applications. The Iterative Conferences have traditionally secured a special issue of the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing. The Conference papers are subjected to the same rigorous refereeing process as regular submissions to these journals, and submission to the special issue is also open to the general community.

Between the two conferences and the three journals, there have been eleven such special issues, dating back to 1997, each recognized for its high quality. All of these special issues are available on-line; those published in ETNA and NLAA are accessible through links on the Copper Mountain Conference web page: http://grandmaster.colorado.edu/~copper/2010

For more information email us at:

copper@colorado.edu