Welcome to Ludmil’s home page 
About me. Since July 2011, I have been holding a Full Professor position at the Department of Mathematics, The Pennsylvania State University.
I received my Ph.D. degree in Mathematics from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski” in Sofia, Bulgaria.
I have attended the Mathematics High School in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria (class of 1981; the site is in Bulgarian).
I am working in the general area of computational mathematics. My research is focused on numerical methods for partial differential equations; numerical linear algebra; multilevel methods for linear systems and optimization; nonlinear approximation tools in compression of data and machine learning; and the applications of such mathematical techniques in hydrogeology, resource economics, physics and other sciences.
[Google Scholar] [MathSciNet] [Zentralblatt MATH]
Ph.D. students.
- Current Ph.D. students: Emily Hammett;
- Recent Ph.D. graduates: Zhengqi Liu (June 17, 2026), Cheng Zuo (October 7, 2025)
- Former students: Ph.D. students I have advised or co-advised earlier are listed on the Mathematics Genealogy Project.
Software. Together with Xiaozhe Hu (Tufts) and James Adler (Tufts) I am one of the authors of the HAZmath: A Simple Finite Element, Graph, and Solver Library, which provides basic finite element and graph routines.
Undergraduate research.
- 2017-2018: I worked with Kaiyi Wu (PSU student, class of 2018) on adaptive Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods (undergraduate thesis). In addition, Dr. Katherine Zipp (Department of Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education), Yangqingxiang Wu, Kaiyi, and I collaborated on a research project modeling the migration of invasive aquatic spieces. For more information, please see our article in Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences.
- 2016-2018: Dr. Tess Russo (Global Development Technologies), Dr. Katherine Zipp, and I worked with Madeline Nyblade (PSU student, class of 2018), on “Numerical Modeling of Agricultural-Hydrologic Systems.” Maddy initiated this collaborative work.
- 2014: Research on Efficient algorithms for planar graph drawing using Tutte embedding with Laura San Roman (PSU student, class of 2016, co-mentor: J. C. Urschel).
- 2013: Together with John C. Urschel we worked with four PSU undergraduate students on “Graph drawing” (with Maureen Gallagher and Colleen Tygh) and on “Monotone schemes for convection diffusion equations” (with Bradley Thompson and Dana Tobin). Descriptions and reports on the research are found at the web page dedicated to this undergraduate research.
Contact info. Ludmil Zikatanov, Department of Mathematics, 239 McAllister building, Penn State, University Park, PA, 16802
E-mail: <ludmil.math AT gmail DOT com>
© Ludmil Zikatanov (1997--present)