Courant Institute, NYU
COMPUTATIONAL ELECTROMAGNETICS (MATH-GA 2830)
Fall 2026
Instructor
Mike O'Neil (oneil@nyu.edu)

Lecture
Thursday 1:25pm - 3:15pm, CIWW 1302

Office hours
Wed 10:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Description
Electromagnetic wave propagation is governed by Maxwell's equations, a PDE system that couples time varying changes in electromagnetic waves with spatial changes. Solving these equations computationally is quite challenging, as there are many different regimes to consider: time-domain problems, high-frequency problems, complex geometry, etc. This course will give an overview of the PDE and integral equation theory for Maxwell's equations, and then tackle various numerical methods for solving these problems.
Syllabus
Download the syllabus here.

Materials
The following textbooks are recommended for reference material throughout the course:

- Papas, Theory of Electromagnetic Wave Propagation, 1988
- Friedrichs, Mathematical Methods of Electromagnetic Theory, 2014
- Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics
- Jin, Theory and Computation of Electromagnetic Fields, 2015

Grading
The overall course grade will be determined based on a final project and oral presentation.

Announcements
None.
Schedule
Below is an updated list of discussion topics along with any documents that were distributed, notes, or relevant code.
Date Topics Materials
Sep 8 Maxwell's Equations, potentials Papas: 1.1-1.4
Sep 15 Time-harmonic Maxwell; electrostatics and magnetostatics
Sep 22
Sep 29
Oct 6
Oct 13
Oct 20
Oct 27
Nov 3
Nov 10
Nov 17
Nov 24
Dec 1
Dec 8 Final presentations