At Costa Rica's volcano Irazu

Hi there. My name is Lubos Brieda and this is my personal website where I have been posting pictures from my various trips and running races since the days way before Facebook or Instagram. As a bit of my background, I am originally from Slovakia, but have lived most of my adult life in the United States. I currently reside (along with my wife Sandra) in Westlake Village, CA. I hold a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the George Washington University, and a M.Sc. in Aerospace and Ocena Engineering from Virginia Tech. My studies mostly focused on computational plasma physics, and I use these skills to provide consulting services to the space and fusion communities via my company Particle in Cell Consulting, LLC. I also teach scientific computing and computational plasma physics at the Department of Astronautical Engineering at University of Southern California. Lessons learned from my work have been summarized in my 2019 book Plasma Simulations by Example, and an upcoming 2024 book Introduction to Modern Scientific Programming and Numerical Methods.

Few more things about me. Besides traveling, one of my past hobbies is highpointing - trying to summit the highest point in each state. I have now climbed to the top of all 48 contiguous states plus Hawaii. All that remains is Denali in Alaska which will be done at some TBD future date. I also enjoy running and am slowly chipping away at the Boston qualifier time. I still have little ways to go. Sandra and I got married in Cartagena, which I highly recommend as a destination wedding location. I am am member of the Westlake Village Yacht Club, a board member of the Buenaventure Section of IEEE, and a member of the Los Angeles George Washington University alumni organizing comittee.

Pictures from this website can be used freely for non-comercial purposes, given you give the proper credit, such as a link to the original page. Travel pictures from late 2023 (such as Abu Dhabi F1 or the Patagonia cruise) were taken with Panasonic Lumix. This pocket-sized camera offers 40x zoom and aperture/speed control adjustments one may find in a SLR, and is thus great for traveling. Older pictures were taken with a Nikon D90 and 28-270mm Tamron lens, and yet even older photos were taken using Minolta Maxxum 5 with the same lens and using Fuji Reala ISO100 film. Some of the really old stuff (old hikes and highpointing pictures) were scanned from prints using a flatbed scanner. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email using the form below.

Thanks for stopping by!