A highly successful materials simulation college in Trieste

More than 200 participants from 57 countries and a team of over 40 lecturers and tutors animated the ICTP–MARVEL College on “Materials Simulations in the Age of AI”, that took place in Trieste (Italy) from 1 to 12 June. The college, organized as part of the final activities of MARVEL, included lectures and hands-on sessions covering fundamental concepts in computational materials science as well as cutting-edge developments. The topics ranged from elementardy density functional theory to GW methods, metadynamics, machine-learning interatomic potentials, Koopmans functionals, density-functional perturbation theory (DFPT), DFT+U, Wannier functions, and topological insulators.

The college was dedicated first and foremost to the MARVEL community, as well as to junior researchers all around the world. Thanks to the sponsors – the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP), NCCR-MARVEL, and CINECA, the college had no registration fee and could offer fellowships covering accommodation, meals, and travel for 80 participants from developing countries, and partial fellowships for 40 more.

The college was organized by Sara Bonella (CECAM, EPFL, Switzerland), Michele Ceriotti (EPFL, Switzerland), Nicola Marzari (EPFL, Switzerland), Sandro Scandolo (ICTP, Italy), and the team also included Marnik Bercx, Iurii Timrov, Nicola Colonna.

For those who could not make the college in presence, all slides and lecture recordings are here and the hands-on materials here.