Category: Travel

Michael Engel attended the 50 year celebration of CECAM in Lausanne, Switzerland. CECAM (Centre Européen de Calcul Atomique et Moléculaire) is the longest standing European Institute for the promotion of fundamental research on advanced computational methods and their application to problems in frontier areas of science and technology.

As the conference demonstrated, simulations are more relevant than ever due to advances in computer hardware and, even more importantly, advances in simulation algorithms. Recent trends particularly well covered in Lausanne were the topics ‘Machine Learning’ and ‘Neural Networks’. Even though being a blind follower can easily lead astray, there are huge possibilities with the right strategy.

Michael Engel presented the opening lecture at the ICMS conference “Quasicrystals: pattern formation and aperiodic order” in Edinburgh. This conference brought together four different research communities to advance the understanding of quasicrystals and aperiodic order: (i) quasicrystals in materials science, (ii) quasicrystals in soft matter, (iii) quasicrystals in partial differential equations and (iv) quasicrystals in aperiodic tilings.

Michael Engel provided an overview talk about the theory and simulation of quasicrystals at the workshop of the Collaborative Research Centre SFB 762: Functionality of Oxide Interfaces at Benedictine Abbey of Frauenwörth. The Benedictine abbey of Frauenwörth was founded by the Duke of Bavaria Tassilo III around 772 AD.

This year Michael Engel traveled again to the USA with stops at the University of Michigan and Indiana University. Also, part of the stay was the observation of the total solar eclipse in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Conference visit to the CECAM workshop on Structure formation in soft colloids held at TU Vienna. Michael Engel presented an invited talk on “New Crystals for Soft Colloids”.