We are pleased to send you the 54th issue of the NCCR MARVEL newsletter
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Newsletter - December 13, 2023

Dear MARVEL'ers,

Please find below our latest newsletter, with highlights and news linked to the MARVEL community.  

This month, you can learn about the most comprehensive verification effort so far on computer codes for materials simulations, led by MARVEL scientists. You can also take a closer look at a high-temperature superconducting nickelate, and read about how machine learning can be used to design better catalysts.

Congratulations to MARVEL Director Nicola Marzari for a special acknowledgement from the jury of the National Prize for Open Research Data, and for appearing once again on Clarivate's yearly list of Highly Cited Researchers.

Mark your calendars for the MARVEL Junior Seminar this week – and remember that the format was recently changed, with pizzas served after the seminars in order to facilitate discussions based on the talks just presented. Save the date, too, for a MARVEL Distinguished Lecture by Elisa Molinari on February 14.

Most importantly, we want to wish you all a wonderful holiday season. We hope that you enjoy the winter and wish you all the best for the new year 2024! 

Research highlights

A “gold standard” for computational materials science codes

Scientists from NCCR MARVEL led the most comprehensive verification effort so far on computer codes for materials simulations, providing their colleagues with a reference dataset and a set of guidelines for assessing and improving existing and future codes.

An in-depth look at a high-temperature superconducting nickelate

A new study by Philipp Werner's group at the University of Fribourg makes advancements in the theoretical description of the correlated electron state of La3Ni2O7,  which has recently been described as a superconductor with a critical temperature around 80 K. The use of  GW+EDMFT, a method developed within MARVEL over the last ten years, was crucial for the study.

Read MARVEL Highlights here

Machine learning for better catalysts

Using machine learning to design better catalysts

A collaboration between the COSMO Lab and BASF demonstrates how ML-driven materials modeling can be used to solve pressing technological challenges, designing catalysts that require much smaller quantities of rare elements, and gets a special mention in the company's annual press conference. 

Two recognitions for Nicola Marzari

Swiss Open Research Data prize acknowledges Nicola Marzari

Nicola Marzari and his team at EPFL and the Paul Scherrer Institut received a special acknowledgement from the jury of the National Prize for Open Research Data, awarded by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences on 6 December. The theme of the prize was “The re-use of research data”, for projects that either re-use data from other projects or make their own data available in such a way that other researchers can conduct further work with it.

Nicola Marzari among the most highly cited scientists in 2023

Like every year, Clarivate has published its list of Highly Cited Researchers who have demonstrated significant and broad influence in their field of research. NCCR MARVEL Director Nicola Marzari, who leads the Laboratory for Materials Simulations (LMS) at the Paul Scherrer Institute and the Laboratory of Theory and Simulation of Materials at EPFL, is featured in the list. 

MARVEL Junior Seminar

MARVEL Junior Seminar — December 2023

Dec 14, 2023, from 12:15 until 13:15, Coviz2 (MED 2 1124), EPFL + Zoom

The MARVEL Junior Seminar series is held in hybrid mode, in order to maintain in-person contacts and allow off-campus attendees to follow the seminars remotely! The MARVEL Junior Seminars aim to intensify interactions between the MARVEL Junior scientists belonging to different research groups.  We are pleased to propose the 56th MARVEL Junior Seminar: Philip Loche (Lab. of computational science and modelling - COSMO, EPFL) and Yuri Cho (Computational molecular design lab. - LCMD, EPFL) will present their research. The seminar will be chaired by Alessandro Carbone (Lab. of theory and simulation of materials - THEOS, EPFL).

MARVEL Distinguished Lecture

[CANCELED] MARVEL Distinguished Lecture — Elisa Molinari

Feb 14, 2024, from 16:00 until 17:15, Zoom

The 36th NCCR MARVEL Distinguished Lecture will be given by Prof. Elisa Molinari, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and Cnr-Nano, Modena, Italy. She will be presenting a lecture entitled: "The excitons that you might not expect." 

Equal opportunities

INSPIRE Potentials – MARVEL Master's Fellowships (12'000 CHF) in computational materials science, electronic-structure simulations, machine learning and big-data are available to outstanding women researchers for 6-month stays in research groups belonging to the NCCR MARVEL. In a field of science where women are still strongly underrepresented, the INSPIRE Potentials – MARVEL Master's Fellowships aim to support excellent female students in their Master's thesis projects, while giving them access to outstanding research facilities and environments. 

The next deadline for submission is 15 April 2024. All the information is available at http://nccr-marvel.ch/inspire.

This month, you can read about the experience of Eva Doloszeski as Master's student and her advice for young girls interested in the field of materials science.

Equal opportunity activities for young girls and boys in 2024

MARVEL and EPFL's Science Outreach Department are pleased to announce equal opportunity initiatives targeting girls and boys. Registration for the science workshop Diamants, alu, caoutchouc, ils sont fous ces matériaux (girls 7-10 years old) are opening on 20 November 2023 and will fill up quickly. Registrations for the Coding club des filles in the French part of Switzerland are opening on 20 December 2023, with also propositions in the other cantons, in German and Italian with registrations all along the year. Those for the summer camps in chemistry and on materials science will open in March 2024.

Join the MARVEL Members and Alumni LinkedIn page!

We want to give a second life to the "NCCR MARVEL Members and Alumni" LinkedIn group following the demand of previous members. It is meant to keep in touch with our fellow MARVEL colleagues and friends. This is a private group and either you received an invitation, or your membership has to be confirmed by our administrators. Then feel free to post job positions, ideas of collaborations, networking events. Let's activate our community!

>>  https://www.linkedin.com/groups/8825865

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