IC Colloquium : Here and now: the intersection of computational science and computer science
Event details
| Date | 07.12.2015 |
| Hour | 16:15 › 17:30 |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
By : Nicola Marzari - EPFL
Video of his talk
Abstract :
Quantum-mechanical simulations have become dominant and widely used tools for scientific discovery and technological advancement; since they are performed without any experimental input or parameter they can streamline, accelerate, or replace actual physical experiments. This is a far-reaching paradigm shift, substituting the cost- and time-scaling of brick-and-mortar facilities, equipment, and personnel with those, very different, of computing engines.
Nevertheless, computational science remains anchored to a renaissance model of individual artisans gathered in a workshop, under the guidance of an established practitioner. Great benefits could follow from rethinking such model, while adopting concepts and tools from computer science for the automation, management, preservation, analytics, and dissemination of these computational efforts.
I will offer my perspective on the current state-of-the-art in the field, its power and limitations, and the role and opportunities of high-throughput computing (HTC, rather than HPC), of open-source codes and workflows, and of big data available on demand.
Bio :
Nicola Marzari holds a degree in physics from the University of Trieste (1992) and a PhD in physics from the University of Cambridge (1996). He moved to the US in 1996, first as a NSF postdoctoral fellow at Rutgers University (1996-98) and then as a research scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory (1998-99) and at Princeton University (1999-01). In 2001 he was appointed assistant professor of computational materials science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was promoted to associate professor in 2005 and to the Toyota Chair of Materials Engineering in 2009. In 2010 he joined the University of
Oxford as its first Statutory (University) Professor of Materials Modelling and director of the Materials Modelling Laboratory. He came to EPFL in 2011, as chair of Theory and Simulation of Materials; from 2014 he also directs the new MARVEL NCCR on Computational Design and Discovery of Novel Materials.
Video of his talk
Abstract :
Quantum-mechanical simulations have become dominant and widely used tools for scientific discovery and technological advancement; since they are performed without any experimental input or parameter they can streamline, accelerate, or replace actual physical experiments. This is a far-reaching paradigm shift, substituting the cost- and time-scaling of brick-and-mortar facilities, equipment, and personnel with those, very different, of computing engines.
Nevertheless, computational science remains anchored to a renaissance model of individual artisans gathered in a workshop, under the guidance of an established practitioner. Great benefits could follow from rethinking such model, while adopting concepts and tools from computer science for the automation, management, preservation, analytics, and dissemination of these computational efforts.
I will offer my perspective on the current state-of-the-art in the field, its power and limitations, and the role and opportunities of high-throughput computing (HTC, rather than HPC), of open-source codes and workflows, and of big data available on demand.
Bio :
Nicola Marzari holds a degree in physics from the University of Trieste (1992) and a PhD in physics from the University of Cambridge (1996). He moved to the US in 1996, first as a NSF postdoctoral fellow at Rutgers University (1996-98) and then as a research scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory (1998-99) and at Princeton University (1999-01). In 2001 he was appointed assistant professor of computational materials science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was promoted to associate professor in 2005 and to the Toyota Chair of Materials Engineering in 2009. In 2010 he joined the University of
Oxford as its first Statutory (University) Professor of Materials Modelling and director of the Materials Modelling Laboratory. He came to EPFL in 2011, as chair of Theory and Simulation of Materials; from 2014 he also directs the new MARVEL NCCR on Computational Design and Discovery of Novel Materials.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
- This event is internal
Contact
- Host : Christoph Koch