Zürich/Manno, 25 September 2008
The Swiss National Supercomputing Centre is an institution of ETH Zurich. The new director was elected by ETH President Ralph Eichler, and will also serve as professor of computational physics at ETH. According to professor Ralph Eichler, Thomas Schulthess is an expert of supercomputing and has international scientific reputation. He worked for twelve years at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee, a leading supercomputing and research in the US. Since 2002, he led „Computational Materials Science Group“ with 30 co-workers. „After many years in the United States, I am happy to return to Switzerland and to participate to the further development of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre” Thomas Schulthess said.
Materials and magnetism
Thomas Schulthess studied physics at ETH Zurich and earned his doctorate in 1994 with a thesis on metal alloys based on experimental data and supercomputing simulations. He subsequently continued his research activity in the US and published around seventy research papers in the best journals of his field. His present research interests are in the focused on the magnetic properties of metallic nano-particles (nano-magnetism). Using high-performance computing, he is studying the magnetic structures of metal alloys. Of particular interest are his studies on the giant magnetoresistance.
Thanks to an experienced research manager
The change at the top will end the acting directorship of professor Marco Baggiolini. A renown immunologist and President of the University of Lugano during the first decade, Marco Baggiolini was recruited to CSCS early in 2007 to strengthen directorship after a case of personnel unrest. He was co-director with M. C. Sawley and acting director after she left. “Marco Baggiolini is an excellent communicator with a long experience in managing research institutions. Thanks to his contribution, CSCS is presently a successful supercomputing centre with appeal to HPC scientists. We are grateful for what he did,” Ralph Eichler said. Marco Baggiolini, on the other hand, is happy to present a Centre in very good shape both with regard to human and technical resources to his colleague and successor, Thomas Schulthess, who will take over on October 1st, 2008.
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