News and Events

March 20, 2008 Alfred Hübler and his student's work on mixed-reality states were featured at a press conference focused on the APS Group on Statistical and Nonlinear Physics at the 2008 March Meeting. The other scientists interviewed were Gene Stanley, Boston University (econophysics and rare stock market events) and Dirk Brockman, Max Planck Institute, (money ciruclation networks reveal emerging geographical communities).

March 7, 2008 Duane Johnson has been elected Vice-Chair for APS-DCOMP 2008-2009, and Chair 2009-2010.

January 28, 2008 Illinois Advanced Computing Institute launches first three projects; "Synergistic Research on Parallel Programming for Petascale Applications," is led by Duane Johnson (Materials Science & Engineering) and Laxmikant Kale (Computer Science) and builds upon work in Materials Computation Center at the Frederick Seitz Materials Research Laboratory.

November 11, 2007 Lecture videos from summer schools reach 1,000 views on MCC website and Google Videos. Topics include Quantum Monte Carlo, Quantum Chemistry, and Thermodynamics Calculations of Real Materials.

June 12, 2007 The work of MCC affiliate Alfred W. Hübler and student Vadas Gintautas demonstrates how virtual systems and real ones can influence each other and bcome synchronized. The modeling and experiments on mixed-reality states are highlighted in APS Physics Tip Sheet "Pendulum Finds Virtual Soulmate"; this research was published in Physical Review E.

January 23, 2007 Illinois researchers break billion variable optimization barrier: A paper published in the journal Complexity describes how a team of researchers in the Illinois Genetic Algorithms Laboratory (IlliGAL) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has achieved efficient, scalable solutions on difficult optimization problems containing over a billion variables. The calculations were performed on the Turing cluster, administered by Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) program, and partly funded by the MCC. UIUC College of Engineering news release.

November 27, 2006 Todd Martínez is one of ten faculty members of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to be named AAAS Fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

November 10, 2006 David Ceperley will be invested as a Founder Professor in the College of Engineering.

November 7, 2006 MCC student Kumara Sastry is co-editor of a book "Scalable Optimization via Probabilistic Model Building" (Springer 2006). In the UIUC College of Engineering news release, "Sastry’s research co-advisor, Duane Johnson, a Bliss Faculty Scholar in materials science and engineering, highlights the importance of the book for practitioners, saying, 'The book brings together a selection of experts that introduce the current methodology and lexicography of the field with illustrative discussions and highly useful references, exemplify these new techniques that dramatic improve performance in provable hard problems, and provide real-world applications of these techniques.'

October 13, 2006 MCC staffer Amy Young interviewed in News Gazette, is part of team to review scripts for the CBS television show "Numb3rs" in order to make the show "mathematically and scientifically accurate."

April 25, 2006 David Ceperley elected to the National Academy of Science. NAS news release

September 20, 2005 Todd Martinez receives MacArthur Fellowship. "By combining effective strategies for computing the quantum mechanical properties of complex molecules with a deep intuition for their underlying chemical beh avior, Martinez is revealing fundamental insights into the physical basis for chemical reactions," describes the MacArthur Foundation news release.

August 29, 2005 MCC student, Kumara Sastry, recognized by AIP Editors for his frontier research by being chosen for the 29 August 2005 issue of the Virtual Journal of Nanoscale Science & Technology, Vol 12 (2005). Their selection was based on his recent paper "Genetic programming for multitimescale modeling," Phys. Rev. B 72, 085438-9 (2005).

March 23, 2005 Lei Guo and Erik Luijten's research is featured on cover of Journal of Polymer Science.

March 14, 2005 MCC hosts 2005 Summer School on Electronic Structure and Thermodynamics Calculations of Real Materials. Over 70 participants attended.

Jan 21, 2005 High Performance Computing chooses new Apple Cluster as focus of Quote of the Week: "You don't have to have infinitely deep pockets to afford a paradigm-breaking computing system, but you do need vision and teamwork."
-- Michael Heath, Director, Computational Science and Engineering, UIUC

Jan 20, 2005 Duane Johnson named Bliss Faculty Scholar of Engineering

Jan 18, 2005 MCC along with seven other University units and Apple Computer have sponsored the Turing Cluster. The new cluster offers 1280 processors.

May 19, 2004: Duane Johnson receives Xerox Foundation Award and is elected 2004 APS Fellow.

February 23, 2004: Richard Martin's Electronic Structure: Basic Theory and Practical Method now published. Book website

February 9, 2004: Todd Martinez named 2004 University Scholar, UIUC's highest honor for young faculty. UI news release

Spring 2001 The MCC will being remodeling of two office spaces which will provide office space for up to 6 graduate students, 2 post-doctoral researchers, 2 visitors and the Center Coordinator.

November 2000 With a generous donation from the IBM-SURS Program and contributions from the UIUC College of Engineering, the Campus Research Board, the CSE program, and the departments of Materials Science and Engineering, Physics, Chemistry, and Computer Science, the MCC now has a 33-node workstation cluster for development, testing, and application of parallel Materials Science codes.

Calendar of Events

The MCC calendar of events lists lectures, workshops, conferences, and summer schools on the UIUC campus and around the world. To add your event, email the webmaster. s

Jobs

Check out the recent job listings in materials computation and condensed matter physics. To include a job posting, complete the online form or email the webmaster.

Stipend support, REUs, and other information for students

MCC has prepared some information for students, regarding research projects, and fellowships. Contact the webmaster to submit infor mation about your research center, scholarship programs, or research openings.