NERSC Marks 40th Anniversary with Series of Lectures on Nobel Prize-Winning Science

Since its establishment 40 years ago, the Department of Energy’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) has been a leader in advancing computational science. To mark its 40th anniversary, NERSC presented a series of four invited talks featuring NERSC users whose research has led to Nobel prizes.

“We’re extremely proud of our users whose work has been recognized with Nobel Prizes, just as we are proud of the scientific accomplishments of all of our 5,000-plus users,” said NERSC Director Sudip Dosanjh.

The four talks, presented at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, drew standing-room-only crowds and attracted hundreds of remote viewers of the streaming video. Now, they have been posted online for viewing.

“Molecular Dynamics Simulations and the Mechanisms of Protein Complexes” by Prof. John Kuriyan of the University of California Berkeley. Kuriyan is a member of a research team led by Martin Karplus, co-recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his pioneering work in computational chemistry. Karplus has been a NERSC user since 1998. View his May 20, 2014 talk.

“The Brief History and Future Development of Earth System Models: Resolution and Complexity” by Warren Washington, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. Washington, a longtime NERSC user who has been a leader in studying climate change for more than 50 years, shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize as a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. View his May 28, 2014 talk. 

“Mapping the Universe” by George Smoot, an astrophysicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and professor at UC Berkeley. Smoot was a co-recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for his research into cosmic microwave background (CMB), which produced an image of the infant universe.  Today, NERSC is a center for the global CMB research community. View his June 3, 2014 talk.

“Data, Computation and the Fate of the Universe” by Saul Perlmutter, a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory astrophysict and professor at UC Berkeley. Perlmutter was co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery that the universe is continuing to expand and that the rate of expansion is increasing. His initial findings in 1998 were supported by 10,000 simulations of supernovae generated on NERSC computers. View his June 11, 2014 talk.