September 22, 2026 - by CSCS
Could you briefly introduce yourself?
My name is Cristina Fernández-Simal Bernard, I’m originally from Spain, and I also have a French background through my mother. Although I grew up in Spain, I attended a French school until I was 18, so I’ve always been surrounded by diverse cultures and languages. I earned a double degree in computer engineering and business administration at the Polytechnic University of Madrid, and I’m now working toward a master’s in computational science at USI in Lugano. Before interning at CSCS, I had the opportunity to work in both the insurance and energy sectors, mainly in data analysis and business intelligence. I’ve always been someone who likes to learn about different topics and understand how things work, so my path has been a bit varied. That curiosity is also what eventually led me towards computational science.
What fascinates you in the world of supercomputing?
What fascinates me most is simply the scale of what you can do with it. When you face a problem that would be impossible ¬ or would take an unrealistic amount of time ¬ to solve on a normal computer, HPC enables you to approach it in a completely new way. I also find it fascinating that there is so much more behind supercomputing than just having powerful hardware. You need algorithms, software, infrastructure, data, and people with wide-ranging expertise to all work together. Coming from a more data-focused background, I find it really interesting to see that bigger picture and understand what happens behind the computational tools that we normally take for granted.
How did you first hear about CSCS?
I first heard about CSCS during the first semester of my master’s program while taking a course on high-performance computing. As part of the course, we visited CSCS and had a presentation from a former intern about their experience. At the time, I was already looking for a summer internship, so after the visit I looked through the opportunities at CSCS to see what could be interesting for me and my professional development. I found a position that caught my attention and decided to apply.
Why did you want to intern at CSCS?
One of the main reasons was that I wanted to try something different. Before CSCS, most of my professional experience had been in the insurance and energy sectors, so I was curious to see what it would be like to work in a highly technical and research-oriented environment. I also wanted to challenge myself. I knew that I would probably come across things I didn’t know much about, and that was actually part of the appeal. I like learning by being thrown into new situations and having to figure things out. And, of course, being at CSCS while doing a master’s in computational science in Lugano felt like a very natural combination. It gave me the opportunity to connect what I’m learning academically with how these technologies are used in practice.
What projects have you worked on so far during your internships at CSCS?
So far, I’ve worked on a few different projects within the Leadership Solution Engineering team. One of them has been the service catalog around MarmotGraph, a knowledge graph that virtually represents the whole data centre and the relationships between entities such as people, services, clusters, and physical machines. Specifically, I’ve been working on how services can be defined and represented within this ecosystem. I’ve also worked on automating processes around GitHub and GitLab, including a pipeline for removing legacy users. More recently, I’ve been working with one of my supervisors on an agentic AI project to develop an AI agent that investigates failed SLURM jobs and generates a structured incident report. We have been developing it using OpenCode, and I’ve particularly enjoyed this project because it combines AI with HPC.
How would you describe a regular day as an intern at CSCS?
I wouldn’t say there is a completely typical day, which is one of the things I like about it. Usually, I have some kind of task or problem that I’m working on, and my day involves a mixture of working independently, looking into things I don’t know yet, coding or testing something, and talking to people from the team when I need to discuss an idea or get some feedback. There is definitely a lot of learning involved. Sometimes I start working on something thinking it will take an hour and then realize there are five other things I need to understand first. But I think that’s also part of the experience, especially when working in an environment where there are so many technologies and systems that are new to you. And, of course, there are also the coffee breaks and random conversations with colleagues, which I think are an important part of any internship!
What will you take home from this experience?
I think I’ll take away both technical knowledge and a new way of approaching problems. Technically speaking, I’ve learned more about HPC, automation, software development, and how technical services are structured and managed in a large research organization. But perhaps more importantly, I’ve learned how to adapt and learn in an environment that is very different from what I was used to. Additionally, I’ve also realized that I really enjoy being in situations where I don’t know everything and have to learn along the way. It can be challenging sometimes, but I think that’s where you grow the most. And beyond the technical side, I’ll take home the experience of working with people from diverse backgrounds and nationalities and being part of an international environment. That’s something I’ve really appreciated during my time in Lugano and at CSCS, and it’s definitely something I’d like to keep looking for in the future.