| My name is Jiri Horak, I am a
Ph. D.student in the Department of Mathematics of the University of
Connecticut (since 1996). The area of my research is applied
mathematics - partial differential equations and numerical
solutions. I work under the guidance of professor Joe McKenna. The topic
of my dissertation thesis is traveling wave solutions of the nonlinear
beam equation
which can serve, for example, as a model for a suspension bridge.
Each semester I also teach one or two classes.
The first six months of 2000 I spent in Cork,
Ireland. I worked on my research at the University College Cork, I
also taught one class. Before that, in 1999, I was serving in the Air
Force of the Army of the Czech Republic for 12 months.
In 1996, I graduated from the Czech Technical University in Prague,
Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering, with the
Master's Degree in applied mathematics. My master's thesis focused on
hyperbolic systems of conservation laws and upwind numerical schemes
for solving Euler's and Navier-Stokes equations in fluid dynamics. My
advisor was professor Karel Kozel of the Faculty of Mechanical
Engineering.
  I was born and grew up in the town of Pardubice in the Czech Republic (then
Czechoslovakia). My favorite place in my country lies not far from
there, about 50 miles to the north on the border with Poland. It is a
range of mountains and a national park called Krkonose. It is
distinguished by its natural beauty and also offers a lot of hiking
trails. In winter, there is a wide variety of trails for cross country
skiing, as well as slopes for downhill skiing - my favorite winter
sport.
Mountaineering is one of my hobbies. Besides the
regular hikes in the mountains in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, I
had a wonderful opportunity to make a great number of hikes in
Ireland, mostly in the southern part of the island - in county
Kerry. I also got a chance to spend a few days in Snowdonia in Wales,
UK. In the summer of 2000 I went to the French Alps and tried some alpine hikes,
too. A desert can also be a beautiful place as I found in the Joshua Tree National Park in California in
March 2001.
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