APPLICATIONS

Thomas Schulthess is the new Director of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) at Manno. He studied physics and earned his Ph.D. degree at ETH Zurich. As CSCS director, he will also be professor of computational physics at ETH. He replaces professor Marco Baggiolini who was the acting director of the Centre Thomas SchulthessThe Swiss National Supercomputing Centre is an institution of ETH Zurich. The new director was elected by ETH President Ralph Eichler, and will also serve as professor of computational physics at ETH. According to professor Ralph Eichler, Thomas Schulthess is an expert of supercomputing and has international scientific reputation. He worked for twelve years at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, a leading supercomputing and research laboratory in the US. Since 2002, he led the Computational Materials Science Group and since 2005 the Nanomaterials Theory Institute, with a total of 30 co-workers. „After many years in the United States, I am happy to return to Switzerland and to participate to the further development of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre” Thomas Schulthess said. Materials and magnetism Thomas Schulthess studied physics at ETH Zurich and earned his doctorate in 1994 with a thesis on surface physics in which he combined experiment and supercomputing simulations. He subsequently continued his research in the US and published around seventy research papers in the best journals of his field. His research interests are focused on magneto electronics, nanoscience, and transition metal oxide materials, as well as the application of ultra-scale computing in these areas. Thanks to an experienced research manager The change at the top will end the acting directorship of professor Marco Baggiolini. A renown immunologist and President of the University of Lugano during the first decade, Marco Baggiolini was recruited to CSCS early in 2007 to strengthen directorship after a case of personnel unrest. He was co-director with M. C. Sawley and acting director after she left. “Marco Baggiolini is an excellent communicator with a long experience in managing research institutions. Thanks to his contribution, CSCS is presently a successful supercomputing centre with appeal to HPC scientists. We are grateful for what he did,” Ralph Eichler said. Marco Baggiolini, on the other hand, is happy to present a Centre in very good shape both with regard to human and technical resources to his colleague and successor, Thomas Schulthess, who will take over on October 1st, 2008.