'Best use of ARCHER' competition winners announced

The winners are:

• Tai Duc Bui, Department of Chemical Engineering at University College London
• Nguyen Anh Koah Doan, Zhi Chen & Ivan Langella, Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge
• Alex Ganose, Department of Chemistry at University College London
• Chiara Gattinoni, Tribiology group, Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College London and Materials Theory at ETH Zürich
• Thomas Mellan, Thomas Young Centre for the Theory and Simulation of Materials at Imperial College London
• Michael Ruggiero, Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology at the University of Cambridge
• Nathan Sime, Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge
• Gabriele Sosso, Martin Fitzner & Philipp Pedevilla Department of Physics & Astronomy at University College London
• Guido von Rudorff, Department of Physics & Astronomy at University College London
• Zhong-Nan Wang, Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge.

The winning entries covered a broad range of topics, including:

• Preventing pipeline blockages in the oil and gas industry;
• Improving the performance of solar power by studying photovoltaic panel materials;
• Simulating combustion engines to improve their efficiency and reduce environmental impact.

You can read more about their work in the booklet 'Early Career Researchers and ARCHER'.

The competition will help these early-career researchers, who are all either PhD candidates or postdoctoral researchers, to build and develop their international networks. ARCHER and EPSRC both recognise the importance of enabling young researchers to develop their personal networks to support collaborations and enhance their skills.

“We are really pleased to have had the opportunity to help early-career researchers develop and enhance their science through international collaboration.” Lorna Smith, ARCHER Computational Science and Engineering Service Deputy Director

The competition aimed to identify the best scientific use of ARCHER, the UK’s national supercomputing facility, within the arena of the engineering and physical sciences. The winners will use their £3000 awards to build research collaborations between the UK and US, and will visit research groups at US institutions to further their research portfolios.

The competition was run by ARCHER on behalf of EPSRC, which funds the supercomputer in partnership with the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Dr Eddie Clarke, EPSRC’s Contract Manager for ARCHER, believes that identifying the next generation of experts and helping them develop the skills to thrive in academia is key to forwarding the advancement of the UK research community.

“As we see the increasing need for high performance computing to tackle today’s complex scientific questions, we recognise the need to encourage today’s young researchers to bring their skills to the world. The winners of these awards have shown ability, enthusiasm and real skill in their research and these prizes will help them work together with partners overseas to benefit science in the UK.” Dr Eddie Clarke, EPSRC’s Contract Manager for ARCHER

The Awards will be presented at an evening reception in London on September 28th. The winners will come together again in 2018 to share with the supercomputing community the impact of the award they received.

ARCHER provides high performance computing support for research and industry projects in the UK. It is hosted by EPCC at the Advanced Computing Facility. See: www.epcc.ed.ac.uk/facilities/archer