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iCER Director's Note

Dear MSU Community,

As I look ahead into 2016, there are a lot of exciting things on tap for MSU’s high-performance computing community. This year we will make a major cluster upgrade, launch a seminar series targeting new HPC users, continue our outreach to researchers throughout the campus, and participate in upcoming HPC-centric meetings and lecture series. Make sure to keep an eye on the iCER website for our latest videos, research highlights and news stories.

I’d like to welcome Brian Roth, who joins the HPCC team as its new Information Technology Professional. Brian graduated from the University of Michigan-Flint with a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, and worked as a Systems Administrator at the Lansing-based web hosting service, Liquid Web, before joining us. The

lifelong Owosso resident has a 9-year-old daughter, and enjoys reading fantasy books, playing board and video games, and skiing. Please stop by and welcome Brian the next time you’re in the Chemistry Building.

I’d also like to announce a new addition to the iCER website: The Service Status page, which gives machine status updates in real time. Make sure to check it out.

I hope you have a productive spring semester.

Spartans Will!

Kennie Merz

HPCC News

Reminder: A planned power outage in the Engineering Building will cause an iCER Machine Room shutdown on Saturday, February 27. The outage will start at 6 a.m. and is expected to last until 1 p.m. This outage has been mandated by MSU’s Infrastructure Planning and Facilities (IPF) department. Detailed

information has been placed on the Announcements page of the iCER website. Make sure to check out our new Service Status page for live updates.

The planned 2016 cluster upgrade is moving forward rapidly. This addition is anticipated to take place this summer. Look for details from HPCC Director Sharan Kalwani in upcoming newsletters.

iCER currently has two new positions available in the HPCC group. The openings are posted on jobs.msu.edu. Please see postings # 2641 and # 2674 for details.

iCER's on Instragram!
Make sure to follow us, as we continue sharing photos and videos of all the cool stuff we do and the latest HPCC developments.

iCER welcomes you to our open office hour each Monday and Thursday from 1–2 p.m. to receive one-on-one help with computational-based issues.
You can find us in the Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building in Room 1440 ready to help!

Research News

iCER Research Consultant Dr. Chun-Min Chang conducts research in the fields of quantum mechanical simulation, Monte Carlo simulation, and molecular dynamic simulation.

Dr. Chang recently published in the

scientific journals Physical Review Letters and Scientific Reports. Ferroelectric will soon publish his research on predicting electromagnons in BiFO3 from first-principles.

Dr. Chang is available to meet one-on-one with researchers during iCER's weekly help desk sessions, from 1-2 p.m. on Mondays and Thursdays (when the university is open) or by appointment.

New research highlight!
We recently posted a research highlight detailing the work of Dr. Bastian Schütrumpf, a researcher at MSU's Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB). Dr. Schütrumpf worked with iCER to study a peculiar aspect of neutron stars called nuclear pasta. You can see the highlight here.

Training News

This semester, iCER launched a series of one-hour lunch seminars designed to bridge the gap between personal computing (PC) and high-performance computing (HPC). The PC to HPC Series, led by iCER Research Consultant Dr. Xiaoge Wang, focuses on popular HPC tools such as OpenMP, MPI, and MATLAB. It is intended for researchers who are new to parallel computing and would like to gain a practical understanding of the concepts.

Dr. Wang, a former faculty member at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, has over 20 years experience in scientific computing, especially in the development of parallel algorithms for various science and engineering applications.

Other upcoming workshops include Linux/Unix, R on HPCC, Git, Software Installation, and Computational Quantum Chemistry Tools. If you don’t see the training you need, contact iCER to let us know what HPC training you’d like to see offered.

Do you know about an event, opportunity, job posting, or general news that would be of interest in our community? Email us at communication@icer.msu.edu and we will get the word out. All submissions will be posted at the discretion of the iCER Communications Coordinator.