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- Manuel Solano recently completed research stays at universities in the United States and Canada.
These days, Manuel Solano Palma, an academic at the University of Concepción (UdeC) and member of the Mathematical Modeling Center (CMM) at the University of Chile, is taking a sabbatical, which he has used to conduct research stays at various institutions in different countries.
First, he went to the University of Arizona in the United States, where he spent two months collaborating with Tonatiuh Sánchez-Vizuet from the Department of Mathematics. “I have been working with him for about seven years on hybridized discontinuous Galerkin (HDG) methods for the numerical solution of partial differential equations”, he explains.
This collaboration is reflected in the co-direction of research by two students from the Civil Engineering Mathematics program at the UdeC: Esteban Henríquez and Fernando Artaza; and Nestor Sánchez, who has now graduated from the Doctorate in Applied Sciences program with a specialization in Mathematical Engineering at the same university.
“Nestor did an internship with Tonatiuh at the University of New York in 2018, while Esteban and Fernando did internships in Arizona in 2022 and 2024, respectively”, Solano explained. Regarding this particular visit, he highlighted that “we managed to complete two projects. One on HDG methods for fluid-structure interaction problems, and another on shape optimization. In addition, we began work on a third article”.
At the University of Arizona, Solano, who is also a researcher at the Center for Research in Mathematical Engineering (CI²MA) at the University of Concepción, had the opportunity to give talks at two events: one was the Modeling and Computing Seminar, where he spoke about numerical resolution in curved domains, and the other was the Applied Mathematics Colloquium, where he presented on modeling the water desalination process by reverse osmosis.
During a second stay in the United States, Solano spent two weeks at the University of Minnesota, where he obtained the highest academic degree in 2011. On this occasion, he collaborated with his thesis advisor, Bernardo Cockburn. “We worked on two topics: HDG methods for problems with nonlinear boundary conditions and the development of an abstract theoretical framework for numerically solving PDEs in curved domains. The latter work is also in collaboration with Tonatiuh Sánchez-Vizuet”, Solano explained. “On a personal level”, he added, “it was very emotional to return to Minneapolis after so many years and reconnect with my professor and several of my friends who still live there”.
Finally, the Full Professor at the UdeC Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences traveled to Canada to collaborate in person for a week with Sander Rhebergen from the University of Waterloo. “We have been working together for about six years. As a result of this collaboration, in 2018, Paulo Zúñiga, a student in our UdeC doctoral program, did an internship with him”.
Another highlight of the collaboration between Solano and Rhebergen is the co-supervision of Estefanía Olivares’ thesis for her degree in Mathematical Civil Engineering at the UdeC. “On the other hand, my former ICM student Esteban Henríquez is currently pursuing a doctorate at the University of Waterloo under Sander’s supervision”, Solano explained.
These stays were made possible thanks to the sabbatical leave granted by the University of Concepción and funding from the CMM’s Basal FB210005 and Fondecyt 1240183 projects.
By Iván R. Tobar Bocaz, CMM Communications.
Image credit: Manuel Solano, CMM.
Posted on Nov 17, 2025 in News
