Tamara (Tammy) G. Kolda

Tammy Kolda has been with the Computational Sciences and Mathematics Research department at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California since 1999. She was promoted to Principal Member of Technical Staff in 2002, and she received a 2003 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in recognition of her innovative research in algorithms and software for scientific computing, optimization, parallel computing and nonlinear solvers. Before joining Sandia, Tammy held the Householder Postdoctoral Fellowship in Scientific Computing at Oak Ridge National Laboratory from 1997-1999. She received her Ph.D. in applied mathematics from the University of Maryland at College Park in 1997, and her dissertation was directed by Dianne O'Leary. In 2005, she received a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the mathematics department at her alma mater.

Tammy's research interests include multilinear algebra and tensor decompositions, data mining, optimization, nonlinear solvers, graph algorithms, parallel computing and the design of scientific software. In optimization, Tammy has led the development of APPSPACK, a serial or parallel, derivative-free optimization software package for efficiently solving nonlinear optimization problems; see her SIAM Review article on direct search methods for more information on derivative-free search. Recently, her focus has been on incorporating constraint-handling ability in APPSPACK. In multilinear algebra and tensor decompositions, Tammy co-developed the MATLAB Tensor Toolbox.  She has applied multilinear algebra techniques to semantic graph analysis. Additionally, Tammy was a contributor to the Trilinos project, a suite of numerical software packages and winner of a 2004 R&D 100 award and co-lead on the NOX nonlinear solver C++ software package, which is part of Trilinos. 

Currently, Tammy is an associate editor for the SIAM Journal on Scientific Computing, vice chair for the SIAM Activity Group on Computational Science and Engineering, co-chair for the 2008 SIAM Annual Meeting, and the editor of NA Digest. Previously, she served as the Secretary of the SIAM Activity Group on Computational Science and Engineering from 2004-2006 and of the SIAM Activity Group on Linear Algebra from 2001-2003 and as Web Editor for the Association for Women in Mathematics from 1997-2002. She has been involved in the organization of several different conferences and workshops including the 2003 Workshop on Women in Applied Mathematics: Research and Leadership.

(Return to People list)