Latest News
For the recent Research Papers which are in preparation or have been submitted for publication, click here.
The ICA is pleased to note that two ICA students, Ms. Liz Arcila Osejo and Mr. Mike Casey, successfully defended their theses this September.
Ms. Arcila Osejo’s Master’s thesis is entitled “Star-Forming and Passive Galaxioes at z≈2 in the CHFT Legacy Survey”, and the work was performed under the guidance of ICA faculty member Dr. Marcin Sawicki. Ms. Arcila Osejo will be continuing in the Ph. D. program at Saint Mary’s under Dr. Sawicki’s supervision.
Mr. Casey’s thesis was entitled “Analysis of Pre-Main Sequence δ Scuti Stars” and was performed with Dr. David Guenther as supervisor. Mike plans to remain in the Halifax area.
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The ICA is pleased to announce that Jonathan Ramsey successfully defended his Ph. D. thesis dissertation, “Into the void: Simulations of protostellar jets from Keplerian discs extended to observational length scales". Jon is the second student to have completed his Ph. D. in the ICA. The thesis committee was composed of Drs. David Clarke, Jon’s supervisor, Rob Thacker, and Luigi Gallo, and Tom Jones. Dr. Jones served as the external examiner and is a leading expert in the field of computational magneto-hydrodynamics from the University of Minnesota. Jon will be taking up a post doctoral position with Dr. Cornelius (Kees) Dullemond, head of the planet formation group at Universität Heidelberg. Dr. Jones spent an extra couple of days at the ICA for discussions with Dr. Clarke and other ICA members.
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ASTROPHYSICISTS BRAD GIBSON AND KATE PILKINGTON are visiting the ICA for the summer, funded in part by the ICA Visitor Program. Professor Gibson comes from the University of Central Lancashire's Jeremiah Horrocks Institute where he is Chair of Computational Astrophysics. Professor Gibson's primary research is studying the formation and evolution of galaxies similar to the Milky Way. His recent work has led to the definitive determination of the expansion rate of the Universe, for which the 2009 Gruber Prize in Cosmology was awarded, and the identification of the origin of the mysterious gas clouds that surround our galaxy. While at Saint Mary's, he will be using his expertise in modeling galactic-scale chemical evolution with the hydrodynamics skills of local collaborators, including ICA member Dr. Rob Thacker.
Kate Pilkington is completing her PhD research on the origin of dwarf galaxies under the supervision of Dr. Francesco Calura of Bologna Observatory. The team aims to make extensive use of the ACEnet high performance computing consortium, which several ICA members played a significant role in creating.
GARETH FEW is a 3rd year PhD student within the University of Central Lancashire's Jeremiah Horrocks Institute, visiting the ICA for 3 weeks. Working under the supervision of Brad Gibson and Stephanie Courty (Lyon), Gareth's research is in the field of galactic chemodynamics. Gareth makes extensive use of the RAMSES Adaptive Mesh Refinement code to simulate statistically significant numbers of high-resolution Milky Way-like analogs in a range of field and loose group environments. As part of his PhD, he is characterising the chemical and dynamical properties of the galaxies' structural components and searching for imprints of their resective local environment within their observable properties.
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Mr. Diego Castañeda, a Master’s student in the Department of Astronomy and Physics and the ICA, now works part time with the Data Cave both helping users visualize their work and providing tours.
The ICA hosted the (first) annual ACEnet User’s meeting in Halifax on April 28. The half day meeting was focused on discussions of reviving the ACEnet internal academic management structure, of the interactions between ACEnet and Compute Canada, of the future of high performance computing in Canada, and, naturally, of funding.
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February, 2011
The ICA is pleased to announce that Dr. Marcin Sawicki, Associate Professor in the Department of Astronomy and Physics at Saint Mary’s University, has become a member of the ICA. Although the ICA was envisioned in terms of computational simulations, Dr. Sawicki’s joining the ICA reflects the need for observers to use high performance computing to analyze their increasingly complex and large data sets. Dr. Sawicki’s research focuses on galaxy formation and evolution early in the universe. Much of his data is obtained from large multinational facilities such as the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes and the ground based Keck, Magellan, and Gemini telescopes.
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February, 2010
The ICA is settling into its new quarters in the nearly completed Atrium Building on the Saint Mary’s University Campus. The move was made with only the slightest disruption, and the accommodations are a significant improvement over our previous quarters.
The upgrades to the ACEnet Data Cave have been completed to make it useful for exploring 3D numerical simulations in an immersive environment. Upgrades included both software to include volume rendering and hardware to make the cave able to animate large ICA data sets without jerkiness. Training for ICA users related to both the enhancements and the presentation of a “cookbook” on how to quickly get from the 3D simulation data files to viewing the 3D simulations in the cave will be presented the first week of February.
Dr. Pascal Elahi from Queen's University will join the ICA from 2 February to 12 August as a post doctoral fellow working with Dr. Rob Thacker.
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November 2009
Dr. Hideyuki Saio spent a month as a ICA visitor working with Chris Cameron on oscillations of magnetic stars and with Bob Deupree on oscillations of rotating stars.
The ICA hosted the second Halifax Conference on Computational Astrophysics in the middle of October. More than 50 attendees heard talks on computations of galaxy formation, cosmology, star formation and the interstellar medium, solar system dynamics, and stellar astrophysics.
Dr. Fernando Pena will join the ICA as a post doctoral fellow in November working with Bob Deupree on hydrodynamic simulations related to stellar structure, evolution, and oscillations.
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16-18 October 2009
ICA Conference
2nd Halifax Meeting on Computational Astrophysics the 18th Kingston Meeting
The ICA is hosting a conference on computational astrophysics on October 16-18, 2009. It will be held on the Saint Mary’s University campus in Halifax. We expect to have five sessions and papers are solicited from any research involving high performance computing in astrophysics. More details can be found at the conference web site: www.smu.ca/icaconference
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July 2009
ACEnet has recently made its Round 2 Post Doctoral awards. These awards are based upon proposals submitted by Atlantic Canadian faculty members who utilize ACEnet facilities and ranked by an external committee. For successful proposals ACEnet provides half funding up to $20,000 per year for a maximum two years.
This round ICA faculty have received four awards:
- Dr. Rob Thacker extending Dr. Eduard Vorobyov's current post doctoral position for a third (the maximum number of years ACEnet will fund) year,
- Dr. Ian Short,
- Dr. Robert Deupree for candidates yet to be identified,
- Dr. David Guenther to support Dr. Chris Cameron for the second year of his CITA National post doctoral position.
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Plaskett Award
The ICA is pleased to announce that Dr. Catherine Lovekin, the first ICA and Department of Astronomy and Physics
Ph. D. recipient, has been awarded the
Plaskett medal for this year. The Plaskett medal is awarded jointly by the Canadian Astronomical Society (CASCA) and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada “to the Ph.D. graduate from a Canadian university who is judged to have submitted the most outstanding doctoral thesis in astronomy or astrophysics in the preceding two years”, according to Dr. Paul Hickson, the CASCA president.
Catherine’s thesis, entitled “Non-radial Oscillations in Rotating Intermediate Mass Stars”, is based on her research into the modes of oscillation of moderately and rapidly rotating stars and the observable effects of these oscillations. Her thesis committee was composed of her research supervisor, ICA Director Dr. Robert Deupree, ICA faculty members Drs. David Guenther and Ian Short, and Dr. Arthur Cox, the external examiner.
After her successful defense in August, 2008, Catherine took up a post doctoral position with Dr. Marie-Jo Goupil working on stellar models associated with COROT satellite data at the Observatoire de Paris in Meudon. Congratulations, Catherine!
This page last modified Friday, 07-Oct-2011 15:07:22 ADT