Professional Background

Frank Graziani’s thesis work explored the non-perturbative aspects of quantum field theories such as quantum chromodynamics. Graziani was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado and the University of Minnesota, where he worked on cosmology and particle physics. He also worked on exo-planet dynamics and star formation in molecular clouds at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

Graziani joined LLNL in 1989 as a computational physicist working in the field of radiation transport and plasma physics. Since then, he has held various leadership positions, including project lead for the legacy code, group leader, verification and validation lead, principal investigator for two LDRD-Strategic Initiative projects, lead for the National Boost Initiative, and associate division leader for computational physics. He is currently the director of the High Energy Density Science Center at LLNL.

Graziani has won four DOE Defense Program Awards of Excellence, the LLNL Director’s S&T Award, and a Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff selection. He has organized international meetings on computational methods in particle transport, workshops on the computational methods used in high energy density physics, and conferences for plasma physics.

Graziani’s research interests include understanding the micro-physics of dense plasmas using N-body simulation tools, kinetic equations, and quantum hydrodynamics. He has authored over 50 publications in refereed journals, and he is the editor for two books on computational methods for particle transport, a book on warm dense matter physics, and a review article on computational plasma physics for the Encyclopedia of Applied and Computational Mathematics.

PhD, Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, 1983

MS, Physics, University of California, Los Angeles, 1979

BS, Physics, University of Santa Clara, 1977