Mary Ann Mansigh Conversation series

The CECAM-MARVEL "Mary Ann Mansigh conversations", named after Mary Ann Mansigh Karlsen, to celebrate her pioneering legacy in the field of computational sciences, focus of non-strictly technical topics of cultural interest for the simulation and modeling community. The format reflects the informative and informal nature of these sessions, with talks introducing the subject followed by a conversation between the speakers and the audience. 

Many of the breakthroughs of the early days of simulation would not have been possible without skilled  programmers who translated new scientific ideas into efficient codes that would run without errors on the supercomputers of the 1950s and 1960s. CECAM and NCCR MARVEL had the pleasure to welcome in November 2017 a truly outstanding representative of the first  generation of coders: Mary Ann Mansigh Karlsen. Her long collaboration with Berni Alder at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was instrumental for establishing molecular dynamics as a key tool to study condensed matter systems. In a conversation with Prof. Daan Frenkel (University of Cambridge, UK), she told us her fascinating story, sharing her experiences as a coder at Livermore over a period of almost thirty years, and providing a unique insight on the scientific and technological development of computer simulation from the early days of molecular dynamics in the late 1950, to the mid 1980s.

The conversation was introduced by a presentation on the early days of computer simulations in condensed matter physics by former CECAM director Prof. Michel Mareschal. 

Left: Mary Ann Mansigh Karlsen in 2017 at EPFL (picture: Alain Herzog, EPFL). Right: Mary Ann Mansigh Karlsen in 1965 in front of the supercomputer Livermore Advanced Research Computer (LARC) (picture: Mary Ann Mansigh Karlsen).

Building on this experience, further conversations were organized, focusing of non-strictly technical topics of cultural interest for the simulation and modeling community. These sessions are in two parts, with a talk introducing the subject followed by a conversation between the speakers and the audience. All the conversations are recorded and available on Materials Cloud Learn and Lhumos