Newsletter - January 21, 2019

“The Scientific Advisory Board continues to be highly impressed and inspired by the results obtained in MARVEL. (...) With the presence of a critical mass of world-leading researchers in the Centre, it is exceptionally well positioned to advance computational materials science and to discover technologically transformative materials.”

--Professor Giulia Galli of the University of Chicago, Chair of MARVEL’s Scientific Advisory Board.

Dear MARVEL'ers,

This is just some of the praise coming our way as the SNSF awards us full funding of 18 million Swiss francs for our second phase, running until April 2022. This new tranche will let us build on the work done in Phase 1, leveraging our great community to pursue six ambitious Design-and-Discovery projects, two Incubator projects and the structural efforts of our “Open Science” and “HPC and Future Architectures” platforms. In the newsletter below, you can read more about the SNSF’s evaluation, new funding for Materials Cloud, prizes awarded to MARVEL members and some of our excellent research. We wish you a great start to the new year and continued success in all your projects.

Top Story

SNSF awards NCCR MARVEL a second tranche of 18 Million CHF

The Swiss National Science Foundation has awarded MARVEL full funding of 18 million Swiss francs for its second phase, which will run until April 2022.

NCCR MARVEL PIs win swissuniversities grant to scale up computational open science platform Materials Cloud

A team of NCCR MARVEL PIs has won a swissuniversities P-5 grant to further develop the Materials Cloud web platform for Computational Open Science. The project will ultimately allow users to autonomously contribute hundreds of different data entries in the different sections without having to interact with one of the platform maintainers.

Nicola Marzari Receives IBM Faculty Award for Curated Datasets on Demand

Nicola Marzari, head of the Laboratory of theory and simulation of materials (THEOS) and director of the NCCR MARVEL has been granted an IBM Faculty Award—the first given to an EPFL professor—for the project “Curated Datasets on Demand”.

MARVEL Contributions Result in Two Editors' Suggestions in Physical Review Materials in November

Research from NCCR MARVEL scientists and colleagues resulted in not one but two Editors' Suggestions in Physical Review Materials in November.

Five MARVEL members to give invited talks at American Physical Society's annual meeting

Two MARVEL postdocs and three PIs will give invited talks at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society, being held March 4- 8 in Boston, Massachusetts.

Five new INSPIRE Potentials fellows will join MARVEL for 6-month research projects

We are happy to announce that Tara Niamh Tosic (EPFL, Switzerland), Julieta Trapé (National University of Cuyo, Mendoza, Argentina), Sinjini Bhattacharjee (Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, India), Maria Syzgantseva (Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia) and Chiara Devescovi (Sacred Heart Catholic University, Brescia, Italy) were granted INSPIRE Potentials – MARVEL Master's Fellowships after the October 2018 call. All five women will join MARVEL labs in the coming months -- congratulations!

MARVEL Mini-Series on DFT, wavefunction methods, machine learning and metals

Jan 24, 2019, 17:00 until Jan 30, 2019, 11:00, EPFL

On January 24, 25, 28 and 30, MARVEL is holding a mini-series of four seminars covering key topics ranging from machine learning to wavefunction methods, as well as advanced DFT and metals.

MARVEL Review and Retreat January 2025

Jan 13, 2025, 17:00 until Jan 15, 2025, 14:00, Sunstar Hotel, Grindelwald

The eleventh MARVEL Review and Retreat will take place on January 13-15, 2025. The event will gather all MARVEL members, group leaders as well as postdocs and students. Presentations will show to all the community where the projects stand and what are the next steps.

CECAM-MARVEL Classics in molecular and materials modelling: David Ceperley and Claudia Filippi

Jan 27, 2025, from 15:00 until 17:30, Online + BCH 2103, EPFL

David Ceperley (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA) and Claudia Filippi (University of Twente, NL) will give a joint lecture on "Quantum Monte Carlo, in what will be the 11th event in the series "Classics in molecular and materials modelling" hosted by CECAM and MARVEL.

MARVEL Distinguished Lecture — Gerbrand Ceder

Jan 30, 2025, from 15:00 until 16:15, Zoom + MED 2 1124 (EPFL)

The 39th NCCR MARVEL Distinguished Lecture will be given by Prof. Gerbrand Ceder (University of California, Berkeley).

CECAM-MARVEL Mary Ann Mansigh series: Science and diplomacy

Feb 28, 2025, from 10:00 until 12:30, BCH2103, EPFL + online

CECAM and MARVEL present a new event in our Mary Ann Mansigh Conversation series. In these complex times, we believe that the theme of Science and Diplomacy is of utmost relevance. We plan to address it from points of view that include education and scientific exchange in developing countries, the potential of computational science as a facilitator for diplomacy, actions of international institutions promoting peace and disarmament, and the management of cooperative research infrastructures in problematic areas.

MARVEL Distinguished Lecture — Alexandre Tkatchenko

Mar 06, 2025, from 16:00 until 17:15, Zoom + MED 2 1124 (EPFL)

The 39th NCCR MARVEL Distinguished Lecture will be given by Prof. Alexandre Tkatchenko, University of Luxembourg. He will be presenting a lecture entitled: "AI-Driven Fully Quantum Biomolecular Simulations".

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Save the Date

Ig Nobel Award Tour Show 2019

Mar 25, 2019, from 18:00 until 20:00, EPFL, Forum Rolex

On Monday March 25, EPFL will welcome for the fourth time the Ig Nobel Award Tour Show, with Marc Abrahams and a line-up of Ig Nobel Prize winners, with the support of the NCCR MARVEL.