Introduction

Hermes 2018 Summer school began with an inspiring introductory lecture from keynote speaker Prof. Adrian Sutton, sharing with us his exciting story of his academic work and personal journey in condensed matter physics and materials science. Prof. Sutton is a fellow of the Royal Society and one of the founders of the Thomas Young Centre for the theory and simulation of materials in London.

Prof. Sutton’s talk discussed the importance of recent developments in materials science and the potential impact of future technological materials on human life. For example, he discussed polymer/plastic technologies, how important plastics have become in our everyday lives, as well as the impact of these technologies on the environment and how we can make a difference as theoretical/computational scientists.

Following the keynote lecture, informal discussions continued over dinner in the beautiful dining halls of the Cumberland Lodge. The evening ended with an informal ice-breaking social mingle, allowing the participants to relax, explore the great Windsor Park and the lodge itself while getting to know each other.

A demanding several days awaited: a series of graduate lectures focusing on the main branches of computational materials science, a series of workshops on those topics (molecular dynamics, density functional theory and finite element modeling), and a seriesof lectures and workshops on science communication, to be put to use in the poster session and presentation competition. Continue reading Hermes 2018 Summer School in Computational Materials Science and Scientific Communication →