Finite Element Rodeo Honors Legacy and Collaboration

When researchers come together across disciplines and institutions, opportunities for collaboration take shape in the fullest sense. That spirit is at the heart of Finite Element Rodeo, the two-day conference that rode into The University of Texas at Austin February 27–28, bringing together researchers from across Texas and Louisiana. 

Hosted by the Oden Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences, the annual gathering continues a long-standing regional tradition centered on finite element methods and their wide-ranging applications. This year’s Rodeo carried special significance honoring the late Ivo Babuška, whose pioneering contributions to finite element methods laid the foundation for much of modern computational science.

The roots of today’s Finite Element Rodeo trace back to the original Finite Element Circus, an idea dreamed up by Babuška and collaborators in 1970 at The University of Maryland, where he held his first US faculty position until 1995. The format would be informal, with timed talks for anyone who wanted to present – no official signup necessary. Following his retirement in Maryland, Babuška joined the Oden Institute faculty at UT later the same year. 

Soon after, he sparked up a ‘local’ version of the circus and rebranded it with a distinctly southern twist and the FE Rodeo was born. No matter the name - FE Circus and FE Rodeo - at the core of they maintain the original format and Babuška’s underlying philosophical tenets: that scientific progress thrives in a collaborative environment when folks come together to share ideas and learn from one another. 

The informal yet quick-paced structure of the FE Rodeo is one of its unique strengths. Researchers are given an allotted time frame and saddled up to present work spanning mathematical theory, computational implementation, and emerging applications. The fast-paced schedule allows time for feedback where seasoned experts and early-career researchers alike can test ideas, and exchange perspectives, echoing the collaborative ethos at the heart of the event. As Professor Leszek Demkowicz, core faculty at the Oden Institute, noted, the Rodeo offers “a chance for all of us, but especially the next generation, to interact and learn.”

The Rodeo included two talks by Demkowicz, a longtime colleague of Babuska’s. His first talk, a technical lecture on bent optical fibers, was given Thursday afternoon, prior to the official kickoff the conference. Personal reflections on Babuška and wife Renata took center stage on Friday night, highlighting major life events including their relocation from Czechoslovakia to the United States. Babuška, who died in 2023, would have celebrated his 100th birthday this March.

Both the memory of Babuška and the lasting impact of his work ran throughout the conference, which included 69 participants representing ten universities – the largest yet! Among the more than 40 speakers were Oden Institute principal faculty member Todd Arbogast and graduate student Jonathan Zhang. 

Before launching into his talk, Arbogast opened with a slide picturing Babuška, a civil engineer, alongside his famous quote, “Will you sign the blueprint?” This phrase became synonymous with Babuška, who coined it during the development of the Orlik Dam near Prague, in Czechoslovakia. These words underscored how critical accurate calculations are - and the real consequences when they’re not.

Zhang, a fifth year Computational Engineering and Sciences student, said he’s been attending this conference since 2023, joked that this “wasn’t his first rodeo.” His presentation took at closer look at neural networks as surrogate models for finite element computations. According to Zhang, the big question in his research that remains is “what yardstick is needed to measure accuracy.” His work on methods to measure accuracy using mathematically consistent benchmarks derived from original formulations, reflect the field’s continued expansion into areas that blend computational science and machine learning.

In addition to the talks, attendees were invited to view a special exhibit honoring Babuška, which opened on February 23 in the Peter O’Donnell, Jr. Building. The exhibit traces his career from his early work in Czechoslovakia to his decades of impact at UT, where he remained active until his retirement in 2018 at age 92.

As an annual gathering that rotates among host institutions in Texas and Louisiana, the Finite Element Rodeo continues to serve as a welcoming arena for sharing ongoing work in finite element methods while sustaining the collaborative networks and free exchange of ideas that have defined it since its earliest days.