CECAM-MARVEL Lecture: Almost famous, a woman behind the codes

Many of the breakthroughs of the early days of simulation would not have been possible without skilled programmers who translated new scientific ideas into efficient codes that would run without errors on the supercomputers of the 1950s and 1960s. CECAM and NCCR MARVEL have the pleasure to invite you on Wednesday November 15 at 17:30 to meet a truly outstanding representative of the first generation of coders: Mary Ann Mansigh Karlsen.

Her long collaboration with Berni Alder at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory was instrumental for establishing molecular dynamics as a key tool to study condensed matter systems.

In a conversation with Prof. Daan Frenkel (University of Cambridge, UK), she will tell us her fascinating story, sharing her experiences as a coder at Livermore over a period of almost thirty years, and providing a unique insight on the scientific and technological development of computer simulation from the early days of molecular dynamics in the late 1950, to the mid 1980s.

The conversation will be introduced by a presentation on the early days of computer simulations in condensed matter physics by former CECAM director Prof. Michel Mareschal.

The lectures are also live streamed and recorded. The videos are published on this webpage to share these events with the whole CECAM community. We hope that you will enjoy them!