By David Murphy, KAUST News

Dominik L. Michels, head of the Computational Sciences Group within the KAUST Visual Computing Center, recently received the first Procter & Gamble (P&G) Faculty Award for his research contributions to the consumer goods industry. The computer scientist and mathematician has a long-standing academic partnership with the P&G Company and has led several academic and applied research and development projects within P&G.

A history of collaboration

The collaborative projects between Michels and P&G have been at the forefront of artificial intelligence and machine learning and scientific and visual computing. In particular, Michels has contributed to the development and integration of computer-aided product development techniques into P&G's workflow. The technology transfer between the parties has supplemented P&G's already strong portfolio of trusted quality and leadership brands.

"As our long-standing academic partner, Professor Michels contributed crucially to the development and integration of computer-aided product development techniques into P&G's workflow throughout multiple core branches of the company. We are delighted to provide him with this award for his breakthrough contributions to our innovation capability," said Alan Maingot, vice president of Global Research & Development at P&G.

"We have a record of research collaborations with P&G that started around five years ago when I was still in Germany. Our academic relationship with them is mainly based on a technology transfer pathway," Michels said.

"P&G is the world's largest and most profitable consumer products company serving nearly 5 billion people worldwide with its brands on a daily basis, so having a significant impact on that underlines the enormous practical relevance of our work here at KAUST," he added.

Current research focus

Michels' current research at KAUST includes examining the fundamental and applied aspects of computational mathematics and physics and addressing open research questions in algorithmics, computer algebra, symbolic-numeric methods and mathematical modeling to solve practically relevant problems in scientific and visual computing.

Prior to KAUST, Michels completed bachelor studies in computer science and physics, master studies in computer science and graduated with a Ph.D. in mathematics and the natural sciences at the University of Bonn. He did his postdoctoral studies in computing and the mathematical sciences at Caltech and later joined Stanford's Computer Science Department before coming to KAUST.