About

Patricio Farrell is a mathematician at WIAS Berlin, working at the interface of applied analysis, modeling and scientific computing. His research focuses on structure-preserving numerical methods for drift-diffusion systems and nonlinear PDEs, with applications in next-generation semiconductors, perovskite photovoltaics and neuromorphic computing.

Together with his team, he develops ChargeTransport.jl, an open-source software package used in both academia and industry. He serves as vice chair of KOMSO, on the ECMI council and scientific ambassador for Brain City Berlin. He completed his habilitation at Freie Universität Berlin, was named one of Capital’s Top 40 under 40, and contributes to public science communication as a trained journalist.

CV

• Deputy group leader, WIAS Berlin
• Leibniz junior research group leader, WIAS Berlin
• Privatdozent & Habilitation, Freie Universität Berlin
• Visiting professor at various institutions, including SISSA, Inria Lille & the University of Florence
• Tenured staff member, WIAS Berlin
• Fixed-term professor (W2 level equivalent), Hamburg University of Technology
• Research associate, WIAS Berlin
• PhD, University of Oxford
• Diplom, University of Hamburg and University of Bath

Funded projects

As PI, Patricio has secured approximately €1.5 million in third-party funding. This includes support from the Leibniz Association, MATH+ and Inria.

• Associate team together with Inria Lille: Analysis of Robust Numerical Solvers for Innovative Semiconductors in View of Energy Transition (ARISE)
• Research group Numerical methods for innovative semiconductor devices (€1,000,000)
• Associated partner within Excellence in Photonic Crystal Surface Emitting Lasers (PCSELence)
• PI within the MATH+ projects:
  • PaA-1: Electronics of Nanostructured Perovskite Devices (€140,000)
  • A2-10: Electro-Mechanical Coupling for Semiconductor Devices (€140,000)
  • IN-11: Identifying and Efficiently Computing Band-Edge Energies for Charge Transport Simulations in Strained Materials (€70,000)
  • IN-B3: Understanding doping variations in silicon crystals (€70,000)

Activities

• Vice Chair of KOMSO, building a new vision, mission and structure for applied mathematics community
• ECMI Council Member
• Editor of Open Mathematics (De Gruyter)
• Scientific ambassador for Brain City Berlin
• Mentor within Berlin Mathematical School and WIAS
• Member of SIAM, KOMSO, ECMI as well as the ECMI special interest group Modeling, Simulation and Optimization in Electrical Engineering

Team

Postdocs

• Dr. Dilara Abdel (second Tiburtius Award for PhD thesis, endowed with €2,500)
• Dr. Yiannis Hadjimichael
• Dr. Michael O'Donovan

PhD students

• Zeina Amer
• Christine Keller

Master's students

• Bingjie Li

Former members

• Dr. Daniel Fritsch (postdoc in 2023, now working at Zuse Institute Berlin)
• Dr. Julien Moatti (long-term visitor in 2022, now associate professor at Bordeaux INP)
• Dr. Stefano Piani (long-term visitor in 2022, now working at SISSA)
• Dr. Stefan Kayser (postdoc in 2020, now section head at Vishay Siliconix)
• Dr. Max Lübbering (master's student in 2018, now working at Fraunhofer IAIS)
• Imad Hamoumi (master's student in 2018, now founder and data consultant)
• Felix Kieckhäfer (bachelor's student in 2018, now software developer at vilisto GmbH)
• Judith Angel (bachelor's student in 2018, now PhD student at University of Hamburg)
• Dr. Matteo Patriarca (long-term guest in 2017, now team leader for simulations at MBDA)