NERSC@50 Seminar Series

As part of its 50th anniversary celebration, NERSC presents a special seminar series featuring speakers reflecting on the center’s half-century of advancing HPC innovation and science while looking to the future. 

More talks will be posted on this page and in the NERSC events calendar as speakers are confirmed.

Did you miss a talk? Past presentations will be posted to our YouTube channel.

Reaction-driven formation of novel active sites on catalytic surfaces

May 20, 2024

Manos Mavrikakis, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison

About the Speaker

Manos Mavrikakis is the Ernest Micek Distinguished Chair, James A. Dumesic Professor, and Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He has been a NERSC user for more than 24 years.

Abstract

Adsorption of reactants and reaction intermediates on solid catalytic surfaces can lead to significant changes of the surface structure, including, as shown in high-pressure Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) experiments, ejection of metal atoms and formation of metal clusters while the reaction is taking place. Depending on the specific system, these clusters provide new, more favorable reaction paths than the typically considered active sites. First-principles computations coupled with kinetic Monte Carlo simulations, all performed at large scale on NERSC resources, enable a more realistic picture of the catalyst’s surface and its active sites as a function of reaction conditions and the identity of reactants and that of key intermediates. Insights derived from our analysis can inform the design of new catalysts with improved activity, selectivity, and stability characteristics.

What We Have Learned about the Universe from Low-Energy Neutrino Physics Experiments and NERSC’s Role in the Discoveries

April 15, 2024

Alan Poon
Nuclear Science Division, Berkeley Lab

About the Speaker

Alan Poon is the program head for Fundamental Symmetries and Neutrinos and a senior physicist in the Nuclear Science Division at Berkeley Lab. He has been a NERSC user for over 20 years.

Abstract

NERSC is instrumental in discovering neutrino flavor transformation and various investigations of fundamental neutrino properties. These discoveries represent a paradigm shift in our understanding of neutrinos. They establish the massive nature of these elusive particles, contrary to their prescription in the Standard Model of Elementary Particles.

In this talk to commemorate NERSC’s 50th anniversary, I will discuss the neutrino discoveries it enabled in the golden era of neutrino physics in the previous three decades. These notable results include the resolution of the Solar Neutrino Problem and the discovery of neutrino flavor transformation by the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory, recognized in the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics and the 2016 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics; the discovery of neutrino oscillations in reactor neutrinos and the measurement of terrestrial radiogenic heat production through geo-neutrinos by the KamLAND experiment, recognized in the same Breakthrough Prize that year; the investigations of whether neutrinos are their own antiparticles though a rare nuclear decay with a lifetime exceeding 12 orders of magnitude beyond the age of the Universe by the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, LEGEND, and the CUORE experiments; and the most sensitive laboratory measurement of the neutrino mass by the KATRIN experiment.

Schedule 

(Additional talks are being scheduled.)

• April 15, 2024: Alan Poon, Berkeley Lab, "What We Have Learned about the Universe from Low-Energy Neutrino Physics Experiments and NERSC’s Role in the Discoveries"
• May 20, 2024: "Manos Mavrikakis, University of Wisconsin, Reaction-driven formation of novel active sites on catalytic surfaces"
• June 3, 2024: David Baker, University of Washington
• June 10, 2024: Gilbert Compo, University of Colorado and NOAA
• June 24, 2024: CS Chang, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory
• August 5, 2024: Julian Borrill, Berkeley Lab, "Big Bang, Big Data, Big Iron - 50 Years of Cosmic Microwave Background Studies at NERSC"
• August 12, 2024: Jean-Luc Vay, Berkeley Lab
• August 26, 2024: Peter Nugent, Berkeley Lab
• September 23, 2004: Stephen Bailey, Berkeley Lab
• October 7, 2024: Jeff Neaton, Berkeley Lab