Ryan McClarren, associate professor of aerospace and mechanical engineering, will serve as deputy director of the Center for Exascale Monte Carlo Neutron Transport (CEMeNT).
The research center, led by Oregon State University, is one of nine funded by the U.S. Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) as a Predictive Science Academic Alliance Program (PSAAP) III Center. These centers direct research and development to further the science of combining experiments and computer simulations to maintain the safety, security, and effectiveness of the nation’s nuclear infrastructure.
The center is focused on understanding what it will take to perform more accurate simulations of neutron transport — which are applied to radiation shielding, energy production, and nuclear physics — on future high-performance computing architectures operating in the Exascale range, approximately 50 times faster than the most powerful supercomputers being used today.
McClarren will lead a Notre Dame team contributing expertise in the areas of predictive computational science, which combines mathematics, computer science, statistics, and physics. Notre Dame Ph.D. student Sam Pasmann will be among the doctoral students and postdoctoral associates involved in the project.
— Nina Welding, College of Engineering